


UF Origins: Season 1, Episode 6: Meta Incognita

by Turandokht, Voyager989



Series: UF Origins [7]
Category: Multi-Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-05 00:53:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17315009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turandokht/pseuds/Turandokht, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voyager989/pseuds/Voyager989
Summary: Incomplete Guide to Callsigns:Huáscar -- WhiteHeermann -- EvansZhen'var -- GrauFei'nur -- ShovelAbebech Imra -- Ray-BanWilliam Atreiad -- MotherElia Saumarez -- LeatherAnna Poniatowska -- HussarLar'shan -- CamelArtesia de Más (Sayla) -- Donkey





	1. Chapter 1

**_Introduction_ **

“Are there any additional findings to what’s already been found, Doctor?” Abebech looked around the haunting age of the abandoned toroidal space station. It had been a receiving and transfer point for gas and Ioian exotics--fuel products, in short. 

“Just the content of these messages,” he answered, gesturing to them on the wall of the station. 

Goodenough followed his message. “ _ Forward, to our Universe. _ ” He shook his head. “Rather bloody enigmatic, isn’t it, Ma’am?” He offered to Abebech. “Like ‘Croatan’, bloody near.” 

  
  
  


“Helm, break to port!” Elia called as she shifted controls. Violeta instinctually followed her, because it seemed like Elia had a plan, even though that brought them even closer to the two ships, as the shields suddenly surged with over-power through the tertiary generators and the shields slammed into the active plasma cutters, driving a massive energy feedback into the systems of the two small attackers. As they did, there were two enormous explosions along the port aft quarter, shaking the  _ Huáscar  _ like a bone in the mouth of a dog as both of them detonated from the impact and energy feedback tearing their thin hulls to pieces.

“We were going to lose the shields no matter what, Captain, better to take them with the generators,” Elia justified herself simply. 

  
  
  
  


Abebech, as silent and reserved as ever, got in the ‘lift and called up the  _ Heermann  _ dock. As it traveled, she pulled a builder’s plate out of her pocket that she had taken from the captured ship, and looked long and hard at it, cupped in her gloved hands. 

_ Weyland-Yutani Corporation. _

_ “We Build Better Worlds.” _

_ Heavy Shipbuilding Division  _

_ Union of Allied Planets Navy _

_ Enforcement Cruiser Ioannis _

_ Laid at Londinium Geostationary Dockyards _

_ Oct 14 2510. _

Gripping it tightly, she put it back in her breast-pocket as she left the turbolift.

  
  
  
  


Will started the explanations for the crew of the ship they had already learned was named the  _ Serenity,  _ with a heavy use of holo-slides, because he hadn’t had the time to do anything better than steal the standard Public Affairs template. 

But as he spoke, with the others entranced, River Tam was staring across the table at Abebech and Elia. It didn’t take long for the two of them to be totally focused on her. 

< _ Why can’t I feel her mind at all?> _ River was musing out loud, and both of them and then Hygienist Va’tor could feel it as well, the Dilgar woman also turning her attention to River. 

< _ She doesn’t want anyone to,> _ Elia answered automatically.

< _ That doesn’t stop me other ti--> _ River cut off abruptly and looked sharply at Elia. < _ You just talked back.> _

_ <I’m a telepath, and so are you,> _ Elia answered. 

“They’re like me!” River suddenly exclaimed about as loud as she could in the meeting, looking with eagerness and surprise over to her brother. “They’re  _ like me _ !” 

  
  
  
  
  


“Shields collapsing, Captain. There’s no more I can do to keep them cohesive,” Elia popped her knuckles. “Seconds, Captain.” 

“Commander Yuzhao, this is Commander Huáscar. Yield now or die.” Leaving the channel open, she pitched her voice. “ _ Tactical,  _ lock forward batteries on target, maximum firepower.” 

The officer on the other end of the comm could hear them, and spoke in Chinese, but the autotranslator rendered the words into English. “ _ My body may be broken, but my name shall live true in history. _ ”

Zhen’var closed her eyes. “Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Chapter Seventy-six. Guan Yu retreats to Maicheng.  _ Tactical,  _ Fire!”

  
  
  
  


Back on the  _ Huáscar,  _ Elia blinked at the transmission.  _ This isn’t good.  _ “Captain, laser burst from the  _ Heermann  _ coming through now.”  _ Abebech wouldn’t break comms silence for nothing.  _

“Let me see it on my small screen. Keep on alert, if the enemy knows why our course is shaped as it is, they will be waiting...”

Elia sent the message over it. As she did, she watched it herself, and felt a chill starkly cross her skin. 

It was a ship, with something of the form of a squared rocket, tapering toward the nose. Two great squared oblong deck clusters thrust up from the main hull, and what might have been the track of a mass driver lay along the dorsal hull. The armour was thick, immensely thick, twenty metres or more, and was gouged and torn in every place. She hung in space, a ghost ship of an ancient battle. 

  
  
  
  


Suddenly, Elia’s senses flared with danger, threat, warning. All from behind. She spun toward the entrance of the bridge to see an African man with a UAS type pulse pistol drawn, aimed at Zhen’var. Elia had no time to make a decision about anything, and fear for her best friend in the multiverse drove what she did next. She knew intimately how terrified, privately, Zhen’var was of being taken prisoner on her bridge again. At times at dock when the bridge was empty or she had control at secondary control, she had even drilled it. Elia reached out, more on instinct than thought.

Zhen’var felt the intense, all-encompassing feeling of Elia’s warm closeness to her, the telepathic equivalent of a bear hug of her mind. Elia’s reassurance came even as she triggered the muscle sequence and plan that Zhen’var had drilled. This was faster still than simply assuming control of her; within her friend’s mind she found the plan she had trained to execute, and had her rolling from chair, pistol in her right hand as her left slapped a button on her belt.

The infiltrator’s gun spoke, even as an iron hand lunged out from the man to wrench Fera’xero from his chair. And Elia, for a horrifying moment balanced on the precipice of not knowing whether or not her effort had worked, refused to draw back, even if it meant she followed her friend to The Door. 

  
  
  
  


#  Undiscovered Frontier  _ Origins _ : Meta Incognita

Season 1, Episode 6

#  Act One

Time itself seemed to have no meaning as the shot ricocheted off the deck. Zhen’var rolled to her feet with her pistol levelled. But Elia could not fire through Zhen’var’s body, wouldn’t inflict that knowledge on her friend. She released her instead. 

Arterus already had his pistol out, also aiming at the man. He had one hand on a tube across the front of Fera’xero’s suit and another on a gun aimed right back at Arterus as he slowly moved closer to the console. 

“ _ Stop where you are.” _ Zhen’var’s voice was flat and cold, her pistol leveled as she slowly started to creep to open the angle between her line of fire and Arterus’.

“Reckon this man is in a suit for a reason,” Jubal Early answered. “So you probably don’t want it open on the bridge. Or anywhere. Reckon you don’t want that pointy-eared fellow dead, either. Might take another of you using this man as a shield, too.”

“I have faith in my sister.”

“Is that so?” He snorted softly. “Where’s your sister, Captain?” 

Suddenly, the tenor of his eyes changed. Relaxed, unfocused. His mind bowed under an intensely precise telepathic assault which first removed motor control. The finger on the trigger moved away. The fingers on the tube relaxed. 

Fera’xero delivered a tremendous kick downwards to Early’s foot, slammed an elbow into his chest. He toppled away, the gun clattering to the desk, as the Quarian took cover. 

But Early didn’t rise. Instead, shaking with some kind of seizure, he rocked on the deck, as with measured footsteps, Elia advanced on his position. “Right. Fucking. Here.” Elia marched off each word. “When it comes to Zhen’var. Right. Fucking. Here.” 

Reaching Early, she stared down with her dark eyes fixed. Inside of his mind, she lunged and plumbed.  _ You. Will. Tell. Me. Everything.  _ Legal niceties quite aside, they were thirty-five hundred lightyears from relief. Elia was going to know exactly what they were up against. 

Zhen’var’s omnitool interrupted the terrible quiet of the bridge. “Captain, this is Secondary Control,” Will’s voice spoke, “We have control. Are you able to respond? May I launch the assault force?” 

“We have control of the bridge, but keep the conn, Commander. Launch the assault force, but be alert for  _ anything.  _ Do not let our guard down. Please call Security to the bridge, we have an enemy infiltrator to place in custody.” She replied, before looking to the Quarian on the bridge. “Are you all right, Commander Fera’xero?”

“Quite well, Captain, though being the convenient hostage is getting a lot for me,” Fera’xero answered with a laugh, a shaky laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. 

“Launching the assault force,” Will’s voice echoed back.

Then the situation began to get worse. Elia suddenly jerked. “Captain, countermand that order, please!” 

“ _ Recall assault force, prepare for ambush!” _ Barked sharply out of Zhen’var’s mouth, her eyes going wide. Only one thing would make Elia say that so urgently.

“ _ Unauthorised transmission,”  _ Tor’jar reported from the comms station… “Localised to the parasite hangar. Doors are closing… Interrupted.”

_ What the hell is going on, Elia?! _

“The New Resistance Ship. That’s how he came onboard. He hacked all of their systems. He was going to kill everyone aboard, but a better opportunity presented itself. They thought he was from  _ Serenity,  _ the crew processed him through as one of the Browncoats. He murdered Spacer Michaels in the Security Detachment, that’s how he got his arms,” Elia spoke in bursts, tight, controlled, still inside of his mind, ripping it apart from top to bottom. “He programmed the ship’s computers to send a burst transmission to the Alliance of Planets. It contains data on us and … On the  _ Heermann  _ running ahead under cloak.”

Zhen’var didn’t even pause as she dashed to her command chair. “White to Ray-Ban, emergency priority, your status and position are compromised by treachery! Secondary Control, the enemy has our measure!”

The bridge crackled open with the running report from Secondary Control. “Captain, we’re detecting a Government squadron. They were hiding behind the wreck. Five  _ Longbow _ -class patrol cruisers, six  _ Trebuchet  _ class cruisers, ten combat corvettes, two ECM ships. Sublight sensors heavily jammed and we’re having trouble with the subspace sensors this close to the interference wave, too.. Captain, they’re firing on  _ Heermann,  _ broad-band dispersal patterns, trying to find her with gunnery…  _ Damn it,  _ Captain, direct hit as she was decloaking! The  _ Heermann _ ’s shields aren’t coming up, they knocked them out before they could be raised!” The Alliance’s tactics had been brutally simple, extrapolating a straight line ahead of the  _ Huáscar,  _ with the  _ Heermann  _ running as beam-bait, and then opening fire on a predictor barrage pattern.

_ Huáscar  _ had already commenced long-range fire, her heavy cannon chewing into one of the  _ Longbow  _ class cruisers as it appeared. The class was a purpose-built military version of the largest of the Reaver ships, which had been converted military transport versions of the same hull. It had almost twenty percent of its weight in mass as armour, unlike the  _ Tohoku _ -class cruisers, but the  _ Huáscar  _ was concentrating full main battery power on her. Distance was too close for the  _ Oculus _ -type ECM ships the Government navy had to prevent passive visual targeting with unerring accuracy.

Security arrived on the bridge, led by Janice Richards herself, who snapped a full hog-tie set of stuncuffs on Early; she scarcely needed to, as his mind was in no state to function by the time Elia had finished with him, now turning back to her Ops console.

“Launching full deck strike!”

The  _ Heermann  _ was firing, too. Damaged and lamed, Abebech’s attacker came smartly about and fired into one of the  _ Longbow  _ class ships as she was launching her wing of Warhammer fighters and Foxbat general purpose interceptors. The torpedoes detonating in the opening bays from Mehmet’s well-placed shots triggered a rippling chain reaction down the flank of the ship which sent her tumbling into a corvette which the  _ Heermann  _ promptly finished with forward cannon fire. 

“Captain, Secondary Control.” Will’s voice came through firmly, recovered from the initial shock of the situation. “We are holding position to complete launch of the strike. Seventy-two fighters, thirty-six bombers, twelve war-fit runabouts. Are you prepared to reassume control? I advise proceeding to  _ Heermann _ ’s support with our fully formed wing.”

“We are. Captain has the conn. Helm, move us to support  _ Heermann _ at best possible speed. We have our enemy, cover our attacker!”

“Captain, the  _ Heermann _ ’s been hit hard,” Fera’xero reported from his science console. “Readings consistent with Naqia reactors being scrammed.”

The  _ Huáscar  _ began to surge forward as the wing continued to launch. Zhen’var had elected to go straight in, and Lar’shan simply shrugged and set about modifying his attack. He understood why Zhen’var wanted to get in close at the expense of taking the time form up the wing. And the  _ Heermann  _ didn’t have much time…

  
  
  
  
  


“We’ve got battery power for a few shots, that’s it, Captain,” Abel Veeringen’s voice echoed across the smoky darkness of the red emergency lighting on the  _ Heermann _ ’s bridge. He was down in main engineering, keeping the situation under control, as best as he could. 

“Not enough thruster power to come to a stop before we hit the wreck, Captain,” Goodenough added grimly. The ship violently shuddered under them as another group of heavy autocannon took aim along the length of her self-healing armour. 

“Helm, bring us about! Four-one-five mark six. Thrusters only.” The thrusters were exotic hypergolics that self ignited, they didn’t need power for them. Abebech’s voice cut the smoke as calm and cool as a computer even under those circumstances, perhaps only the slightest of inflection as she gave her orders to indicate the direness of the situation. “Weapons, target that cruiser we’re bearing on and give them everything.” 

The young helmswoman tapped at her controls. “Four-one-five mark six, thrusters only…” Ca’elia was proud her voice didn’t shake as she shifted their attitude in the face of almost certain death.

“Firing.” Lt. Mehmet was steady on his controls as bursts of firepower raked the armour of one of the enemy cruisers and four, then six torpedoes followed them home. A  _ Longbow  _ was a long, narrow ship, never designed to face this kind of firepower, even though it had real armour. The main cannon tore massive chunks from the armour in scoring lengths of blackness down her hull, and then the torpedoes plunged into them and erupted in brilliant flashes of white. The savage glee of watching the ship break up into two pieces was met by a quiet smile from Abebech.

Then the world seemed to explode again around them, the ship tumbling and shaking as sparks leapt from the controls. Even the emergency batteries failed, leaving only the compressed air lines allowing Ca'elia to manually turn thrusters on and off.

“That was the Warp Drive, Captain!” Abel's voice called. “Twenty seconds to impact with the wreck.”

“Steady lads, steady,” Abebech answered, and finished reconfiguring her omnitool to power the visual sensors. They flickered to life on Ca'elia's console showing the looming hull as more autocannon rounds stitched their armour. It would only last a minute before draining, but they only needed a minute.

“Helm, see that bay door at nine o'clock high, port? Use thrusters to redirect us for it.”

“I  _ intend  _ to attempt to survive the landing, ma’am.” Ca’elia replied, grim but with a hint of a death’s head smile, as she started to use her thrusters to their fullest extent.

“Don’t worry, just do it--Sound collision!” 

Goodenough found an emergency alarm control that still worked and the sharp blasts on the klaxon rent the fading air of the battered attacker. 

Abebech smiled to him and let Ca’elia do her job. “Goodenough, how handy are you with a cutlass?” 

“A cutlass? Well enough to do the job, I expect.” 

“Pistols?” 

“Perfectly good shot, ma’am.” 

“Quite good then.” There was something sharp and predatory in her eyes as she watched the bay doors loom. As they did, a brilliant, dangerous smile began to spread to Goodenough’s face, too.

_ Boarding is getting a bit ahead of ourselves when I still need to let us survive the landing… _ Ca’elia thought, as her eyes stayed locked on the fading sensor display, hands moving across her console to leverage every possible bit of impulse from the thrusters.

Then there was a dull, sharp crumple as they slammed into the bay doors and carried through them. Somehow, Abebech had known, sensed, or guessed, that it wasn’t a primary armour door but an internal vacuum-excluding door, thin and light. The  _ Heermann  _ stayed intact through the door, and the rending of metal served to cancel their momentum. 

Abebech smiled. “Good work, Leftenant. Take us down.” 

“Taking us down, Captain… save a pistol for me, ma’am.” With more space, she was more confident, as she slowly brought  _ Heermann _ to a stop, with screeching metal.

“All hands, this is the Captain speaking,” Abebech called, using Goodenough’s omnitool on his kindly extended arm. “We claimed three of the enemy despite being surprised and ambushed, good show,  _ Heermann.  _ Our current situation in this--we have landed in one of the primary hangar bays of the unidentified wreck. We have guns and arms. As always, following the first principle of our ship, we have one objective: To find the enemy, if present, and take the battle to him.  _ Viva Huáscar _ ! All crew except engaged medical personnel and wounded are to assemble at airlocks one through four in three minutes. Doctor Foru, you are to report as well, and give me a report on all wounded at that time. That is all.”

She looked up, and smiled to her tiny bridge crew again. “What was it Nelson said at Cape St. Vincent, Goodenough?” 

“Westminster Abbey or Glorious Victory, Captain.”

“...Very good then.” She chuckled and walked to her sea cabin, forcing the doors. “Get all the emergency packs, get your suits, we have no idea how long we’re going to be here or what condition the wreck is. And take up arms!”

  
  
  
  
  


As part of the order to launch the landing force, the  _ Serenity  _ had been underway out of the parasite bay when the order was countermanded and the doors began to close. Seized by the state of emergency, River had jammed the throttles wide open for a full power burn, sending them blowing out of the bay before the doors closed. They had caught the transmission from the New Resistance ship moments later. 

Shaking his head, Mal could guess exactly what had gone down.  _ Jayne, you idiot _ ! But he didn’t say it out loud. He had Jayne on his ship again, and he needed him, right here, and right now. River proved just as adept at piloting the  _ Serenity  _ as Wash had been; she quickly pulled them around and clear of the area the fighters were mustering in to avoid collision. 

From their position outside of the main fighting, they watched with increasing grimness the struggle of the  _ Heermann  _ and the  _ Huáscar  _ standing into danger with her wing accelerating up and around her from behind, weapons streaking and flashing across the void with energies greater than any he cared to think about. 

“The  _ Heermann _ ’s going down on the wreck,” River said, and then added, dimly. “Abebech could use our help.” 

“Goin’ down, they …” Mal stopped, paused, fully digested what River had just said. Oh, yeah, he didn’t want to feel helpless anymore. He also hadn’t ever seen a concentration of Government warships like this, except at the Universe battle. But the  _ Huáscar  _ was already tearing into them. 

“You’re sayin’ we should head for that wreck ourselves?” 

River paused, like she was still digesting what, exactly, she was saying. Then she nodded. “Yes.”

“Commander Imra’s been good to us. All right. We’ll see if we can get them off. River, if we can make an approach from the front of that ship, it’s pretty chewed up. The Feds masked themselves behind that leviathan, we can too.”

_ “On it. _ ” Manoeuvring thrusters worked, and again,  _ Serenity _ ’s main drives burned, worked by hands that were still wearing the gloves that Elia had given her.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Captain, we’ve lost the  _ Heermann, _ ” Elia said very, very quietly on a hushed, taut and grim bridge. The  _ Huáscar  _ was undamaged and standing into action against a force it had already sloshed around, brutally. That still left them feeling no pride or confidence, and the loss of Abebech’s ship was the reason why. “She impacted with the surface of the wreck.”

“Commander, I do not think one as lucky or skilled as Imra is gone yet. We would have picked up emergency beacons from even a partial abandonment if she thought the loss of her ship upon her. Colonel, prepare your assault teams.” Zhen’var was clenching her hands hard enough to score the stone on the armrests of her chair.

Elia sniffled softly and clenched her teeth.  _ You will be strong. Abebech may not yet be gone.  _ “Yes Captain.”

“Confirmed,” Fei’nur echoed on the intercom. 

_ Huáscar  _ was standing off, pummeling the enemy, with her group now formed up, overtaking her and going in. 

“I want a sensor probe launched after  _ Heermann’s _ ballistic trajectory, Ops, to guide Colonel Fei’nur. Keep us on the attack.”

“Understood, Ma’am. The enemy fighters and bombers are forming to attack us. They number at least four hundred,” Elia answered. “Unlike the ships, they have the turn to force battle.” 

But the  _ ships  _ were already  _ suffering. Huáscar _ ’s main batteries had held the range open, beyond the effective ability of the enemy to reply, for more than five minutes now. They had disabled or destroyed five enemy vessels, about one a minute, in that time. The only risk was running out of torpedoes. It was obvious that the enemy had realised what was happening and was taking active measures to try and embroil the  _ Huáscar  _ with their fighters _ ,  _ otherwise it might take some time and be logistically inconvenient, but they would be destroyed. 

Or so it had seemed. Fera’xero raised the alert first. “Captain, our sensor readings are resolving a major wave-front of energy emissions from the Alliance fleet. Hypothesis: Long-range missile salvo. They have localised us with sublight sensors sufficiently well to rely on seeker-heads for final approach;  _ Heermann  _ was also jamming their sensors. Time to our position: Twenty-seven seconds!”

“Alert the wing, Tactical, Helm, Ops, you heard him!”

“Withdraw to increase time for interception, Captain?” Implicitly in Elia’s confirming question was the concern about how long it would take to ultimately close the distance and find out about the  _ Heermann.  _ Violeta laid in one local evasive and one distant. “Major Lar’shan confirms his fighters are intercepting.” 

“Torpedoes and tertiary cannon reserved for anti-missile use… Resolving intercept trajectories,” Daria was working the mathematics--at sublight, actually relatively straightforward--and torpedo-on-missile intercepts. Of course, depending on how dense of a pack it was that might be very useful or pointless.

“Ten sub-waves of approximately three hundred and sixty missiles each, Captain,” Fera’xero updated as the sensor picture resolved. The dots of the missiles now populated the tactical display, showing velocity, acceleration, and position relative to the strike-wing.

Zhen’var grimaced  _ sharply _ . “... Increase the range.” Her voice was soft, as she took the decision to prioritize  _ Huáscar _ over  _ Heermann’s _ crew.

“Coming about four-four-one mark one!” Violeta called out as the  _ Huáscar  _ spun to show her tail. “Engineering, utmost power to the impulsors.” 

“Utmost power,” Anna’s voice answered with a steely calmness. Violeta watched as the drives peaked through their rating thrust and then increased it by almost half again, hitting 145% of design thrust. The ship’s impulsors began to scream in a way that could be heard through the deckplates, a shivering vibration straight up into their acceleration couches. 

“Captain,” Anna’s voice came to Zhen’var next, “We have overloaded the engines by more than forty percent. They are holding.”

Daria held fire with torpedoes. The fighters engaged. 

  
  
  
  
  


Artesia de Más--a woman variously known as Artesia som Deikun and Sayla Mas in previous identities--held the controls of her Mongoose tightly. Her first engagement in the fighter was going to be against something that a normal telepath could not sense: Missiles. Despite that, she could in a dim way sense the pinpricks of electric fields rapidly closing. They provided a peripheral awareness as her HUD focused in on them. 

The Mongoose was, truth be told, not a fighter she was completely pleased with. The integral photon torpedo launcher wasted weight and increased volume. The wing hardpoints were what really mattered for carrying small missiles. The bombers continued to close with the enemy under Lar’shan’s plan. 

Now she selected her missiles. Interlocking lobes on the sensor dish converged twenty-four targets at once, and she didn’t remotely have the missiles for all of them. Six hardpoints had been considered adequate. They aimed for the heart of the waves, the missiles resolving themselves into clusters based on launching.

“Aim for the gaps between the clusters with your fighters after counter-missile launch, then match vee and engage with guns!” Lar’shan was used to his universe’s schema, using fighters to support anti-missile ops; Zhen’var was treating it as a matter of course. 

“Independent action,” Artesia directed to Wildcat Four, her wingman. Close formation on missile intercept duties just risked accidents.

She then flipped the switch inboard on her console and watched the final target resolution. As it completed, a sharp pulse of the thrusters swung her fighter about to face behind it--toward the enemy fleet--as she killed main engine power. “Wildcat Three, good tone, taking shot.” The trigger salvoed the missiles in unison. 

The moment they were gone, she followed Lar’shan in with thrusters burning and course shifting, as the missiles spread out, their group of four fighters one of countless many of the seventy-two the  _ Huáscar  _ had launched. Around them, the micro-torpedoes fired by the runabouts began to detonate, tearing holes in the cloud of missiles. 

Again, she brought her nose around, now because she was in the midst of the missiles, and using her cannon, tore through a brace of them. A flash of her senses, disembodied in space, warned her of the approach of one of the heavy anti-ship missiles toward her course, and the fighter skewed hard to right and she fell in behind it, claiming a third with guns. 

Distantly on sensors, the  _ Huáscar  _ could be seen putting distance between herself and the salvo. Twenty-seven seconds had turned into more than a minute as her drives flared to maximum power and, from the enormous radiation spike, far beyond. It was a battle of blips which felt bloodless. 

Still, it piqued her memory of combat. “ _ Form on my right _ !” Lar’shan’s voice echoed, meant for his wing. She slid to the left until the indicator lights of friendlies were glowing in position. “All runabouts, this is WC50 Actual, head for home. Fighters on me, full thrust.”

He led them in to overtake the bombers before they were set upon by the enemy’s wings, now burning out to pursue the  _ Huáscar.  _ Artesia closed up in a classic ‘fingers four’, eyes scanning brightly ahead. “Wildcat three, this is Wildcat four. Forming on you.”

She confirmed her wingman was in position. “WC50 we are in formation.” 

“Roger that.” Artesia’s quick look at her sensors suggested they were outnumbered by about five to one and going to be in the thick of it in one minute. Business As Usual. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Lead wave at point blank range,” Elia didn’t look up from her console, not at this point. 

Daria’s finger firmly depressed the activation button on the automatic anti-missile systems. They worked too fast for sapient involvement beyond that point. Tracking and allocation between the dozens of light anti-missile pulse cannon that the  _ Huáscar  _ had meant that space simply came alive with fire as they allocated their fires by computer against a metric of greatest threats and targets with the highest kill probability. 

The missile waves were tightly spaced, and the  _ Huáscar’ _ s batteries pivoted and tracked, aiming at points of space where the missiles would not be then, but instead the microsecond beyond required for the energy to cross the distance to its target. Everything was a prediction. 

Space rippled with blossoms, and the energy was mostly delivered by the  _ Huáscar _ ’s cannon, not the detonations. Her drives straining under their feet, now the missiles began to hit the shields. A rippling sound like rain on the hood of a car was all they felt or heard as the shields were impacted. 

“Ten to one ratio of octo-derived chemical bursting charges in rocket-driven armour-piercing warheads and NuDets,” Fera’xero reported. “Only one-tonne shaped bursting charges on the former, but the rocket fired penetrator can slip through the shields at missile body disintegration and impact the hull with considerable kinetic energy..”

“Not going to be enough for them to compromise us unless we’re knocked down to tertiaries,” Elia answered.  _ Huáscar  _ caught a nuke, but her shields shrugged it off. “Captain, may we come about?”

“Please, with alacrity.” The  _ Huascar _ ’s captain barely showed the strain and worry she was feeling at the fate of her attacker, but she  _ was _ showing it.

Violeta worked the helm. The engines thrummed in the deckplates. The order for utmost power had not been countermanded and with the impulsors roaring in the hull, the  _ Huáscar _ ’s powerful gravimetric impellers and thrust vanes redirected momentum and thrust with a flaring of waste heat from the drives, glowing cherry-red as she completed the turn. “ _ Zero-zero _ !”

From the moment she called out the conclusion of the violent turn, the  _ Huáscar _ ’s impulsors were driving her back at the hulk with growing and redoubling speed. 

“Major Lar’shan is engaging the enemy wings,” Elia shook her head, wondering what the tremendous engine noises she’d never heard before truly meant, as ops she had a better view than most, and the power had skyrocketed in the impulsors to almost 150% with the warp drive down and cold, but the details of the systems with their design load well exceeded and what was being done to them in that moment was in the hands of Anna and her engineering team alone. “They allowed the bombers to pass through to focus on carrying home their own attack, so the Kestrels are making their runs, Captain. They are also adjusting course to intercept us on our new heading.”

“Give them something to think about aside from lining up on perfect attack vectors, Tactical.” Zhen’var replied, eyes flicking across the displays she could see.

Daria took the pulse cannon Mk.1 and Mk.2, the large anti-ship mounts, and quickly reconfigured the normal firing pattern. Instead of pulsing at a single target, she had them jerk around  _ while firing  _ a burst, to create a pattern barrage. “Elia, tell Lar’shan to target the outside wings, we’ll take the inside!”

“Confirm,” Elia answered and brought up Stasia. “Block off fighter operations against the inboard enemy wings relative the wreck, Airboss.”

“Confirm, Ops. Concentrating fighter operations outboard.” Stasia hastily began ordering squadrons to shift position to concentrate their effort against part of the attack force while the  _ Huáscar  _ concentrated on the other part. When she was satisfied she’d deconflicted, she activated the comm again.

“Ops, PriFly Actual. You are clear to fire.” 

“Tactical, you are fire-free inboard! Confirm deconflicted trajectories and open fire at your discretion!” 

Daria blinked tracer-lines across her tactical plot showing the firing arcs of her predictor barrages against the operational area designated to Lar’shan’s wing. She pointed, exactly like they’d trained. “Trajectories confirmed deconflicted! Opening fire.”

_ Come on, come on, Imra is likely in trouble…  _ Zhen’var could only mentally curse at the enemy for being so utterly  _ uncooperative. _

Huge shafts of energy rent the night as the main batteries and secondary batteries fired on the enemy. They had little chance of hitting fighters, but the predictor dispersed patterns corrected that. It forced the enemy to keep moving, jinking, dodging. It bought them time. Time Abebech Imra might not have.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Weapons check?” Abebech Imra stalked down the line of the  _ Heermann _ ’s crew of seventy-eight effectives from a crew of ninety-two, verifying their armament and readiness, assembled in spacesuits outside of the ship. “Very good.”

“All in order, Captain?” Goodenough asked, fingering a pistol. 

“Yes, all in order. Go ahead and secure the airlock.”

“Aye. Come on, First Platoon!” With one squad of security personnel or marines in each ‘platoon’, Goodenough lead them across the ruins and age of the hangar bay. The shattered remains of fighters, the collapsed girder trusses. Stil, it was only a hundred meters. 

There at the bay personnel doors, he drew up short. There was a symbol etched into the metal above it. The swords were crossed upright over the top, the laurels of victory completing a rough diamond from the bottom. A crown occupied the space between the two sword tips, and inside of the diamond shape were four interlocking circles in black and white; the bottom had a Germanic eagle, the two to the sides showed the two hemispheres of Earth, and the top one that surmounted them showed the Eye of the Illuminati. A banner twirled around the laurels of victory, declaring  _ Mes Werke, damiu que mon Leutle ne soit esklaven sind.  _ The language, he knew not, but that it was human and European, there was no doubt.  _ God…  _

A minute later, leading the second platoon, Abebech came up with Ca’elia at her side. “Commander, is it locking you out?” 

“No, Captain, I … Was trying to figure out where this ship was from, Ma’am. It’s clearly the original.”

Abebech looked up, and smiled wryly. “Well, there’s no time for that now, Commander, but that’s simple. This seal means it’s a battleship of the Earthreign.”

“Merciful God,” Goodenough muttered. “You must feel like you’ve just cracked open Pharaoh’s tomb, Captain. What does the motto mean?”

“Oh, it’s Old New Fraconian,” she laughed. “‘ _ My work, all so that my people shall never again be slaves. _ ’”

“Doesn’t sound much like what I’ve heard of the Earthreign,” he replied, following her as she had started padding toward the airlock.

“The histories are written by the Normals, Commander. The Earthreign meant something different for Espers. Haiti was a massacre or a liberation depending on who you ask back home, was it not?” That question made the point succinctly, in a conversation between an African and a self-identified mulatto. 

After the exchange, Abebech pushed up to the airlock. The outer door opened. She stepped in. “Atmosphere beyond,” her words crackled over the short-range intercoms, the squad of Marines insisting on following her in before it cycled, lest she be cut off. Quickly, the rest of the boarding party followed, removing their suits and stacking them in the dust-covered lockers beyond. The ship had partial lighting.

“Three thousand years and the lights still work? Djinn like as not,” Abdulmajid shook his head.

“Nuclear emergency batteries,” Abebech explained, “though… We might also consider…”

“That the Alliance has restored some power,” Commander Goodenough finished grimly. 

Lieutenant Ca’elia’s eyes were wide as she looked around. “More like as not, I’d say by the ambush. I  _ think  _ I’m the quietest scout we have, Captain, Commander. Just like prepping a tac op back on New Eden.”

“Leftenant, you understand the risk?” Abebech looked sharply to her. 

“There is nothing certain in one’s life other than that you’ll lose it, ma’am, but I’m the best one for it, and I’m volunteering.” The young Dilgar shifted with her rifle slung over a shoulder.

Abebech looked at the young Dilgar officer for a long moment, and then nodded. “All right. So the enemy doesn’t know we’re moving, see that two character symbol like so on the airlock? Duplicate it as your mark for your trail. They should think it’s a regular shipboard marking. But it’s only on airlocks.”

Narrowing her eyes, Ca’elia nodded. “Understood. Anything else, Captain Imra?” Not eager, but determined, the helmswoman was shedding her pack and all non-essential equipment for this. “Objectives?”

“Find the bridge. It will be called the  _ Passrelle.  _ If the design is anything like that of the custom of follow-on ships from successor states, it will be buried into the keel,” Abebech explained. “Scout the enemy position as much as you can and determine their numbers and strength. We will begin advancing to contact.”

“Understood, Captain.” Ca’elia saluted properly, and began to move off rapidly, determined and sure, even if the idea of finding the bridge in a 3-km long ship was utterly daunting. She loaded the nearest derivative of New Franconian her Omnitool had, knowing it would not be completely the same but would assist with visual recognition of what she was looking for. 

“She’s a bloody brave one,” Goodenough shook his head. “Was it right to send her off alone?” 

“She is the only woman we have trained for it. Sending someone untrained with her would be worse than sending her alone,” Abebech replied. “All right, platoons. Forward!” Keeping her rifle cross-chest, barrel-down in a commando carry, she advanced in the front herself. From the stories that the crew had been circulating in the past few days, nobody thought to suggest that she take a safer position. 

  
  
  
  
  


The  _ Huáscar _ ’s fighter wing was swirled into action, pitting seventy-two Mongeese against almost four hundred Warhammer-type fighters and nearly a hundred Foxbat-type bombers that they were escorting in to attack the  _ Huáscar  _ herself. 

WC50 had an enormous acceleration advantage over the enemy, as great as the one Lar’shan had possessed over Char’s forces or the forces of Zeon at A Bao a Qu. The problem for their enemies was that the Government forces didn’t have any pilots to compare to the Red Comet. Or even the Crimson Lightning. 

Artesia, flying the second element in Lar’shan’s lead flight, watched the vast arrays of enemy fighters, burning hard for the  _ Huáscar.  _ At full thrust, they had the smallest chance to overtake the  _ Huáscar  _ if she did nothing but run; but their hour of running was over. The  _ Huáscar  _ was standing back into action. It was time to win.

They had already exhausted their light missiles engaging the enemy anti-ship missiles. That meant they had torpedoes and guns only. They were outnumbered five to one. 

“All squadrons,” the Dilgar Major’s voice cut sharply. “Stand by for full power acceleration on my mark. We are concentrating against their left.  _ Huáscar  _ takes the right. Go after the bombers, we want the bombers first!” 

“Donkey, on my mark!” Tactical plots flashed through the link, and Artesia acknowledged and swung in behind WC50 Lead. They  _ never  _ got flattering callsigns, her’s included. Suddenly the acceleration force of the Mongoose pushed her back into her acceleration couch. 

They surged ahead, transiting the battle and de-acclerating, before Lar’shan’s voice gave them a sharp “break right!” and Artesia surged her engines until black spots appeared at the edges of her vision again. The flock of fighters banked back to the right, toward the  _ Huáscar _ ’s fire, but cut out at the last moment as an ambush of fighters formed up to block their run on the Foxbats.

Their sharp de-acceleration this time wasn’t followed by a new order. It put them directly behind a group of the Warhammers that was still adjusting to them. The  _ fighters  _ of the Government could barely match the acceleration of one of the ASN’s capital ships. “Select your targets and engage!”

“Acknowledged, Camel,” Artesia answered dryly. “Greenthumb on me,” she called to her wingman and sighted the first of the fighters. She flicked the lever outboard and opened fire, a stream of energy pulses tearing through the first target. Bucking left and outside she pivoted her nose past the spray of debris and fired again. Another of the Warhammers exploded. 

To her upper left she saw Lar’shan’s Mongoose scream past her. Four Warhammers were left exploding in its wake. A tell-tale feeling of warning kept her nose tracking to the rear even as momentum carried her forward. She saw a group of four Warhammers bearing down on Lar’shan from behind and selected her torpedo launcher. The brilliant energy of the torpedo in flight spun away from her fighter under power. Activating the selector, she chose remote detonation and watched the anti-ship weapon annihilate the tight enemy formation. 

_ That feels like cheating to become an ace so easily,  _ but then, it was no different than what Char had known against the Federal forces. That roiled her stomach as she pivoted her nose back ahead and selected the throttle levers, the fighter surging ahead to catch up with Lar’shan again. 

“Sharp shooting, Donkey. We’ve taken down a squadron ourselves,” came his encouraging voice. “Now let’s go for these Foxbats!” They had blasted open their own approach route, and the plots flashed from Lar’shan’s computers to her own. The  _ Huáscar,  _ an immeasurably distant object, was still visible beyond by the continuous flashes of long-range fire against the other half of the formation. 

She angled for a group of the bombers and selected her guns again. A brief pang of longing for something like a Mobile Armour surged in her heart, but the Mongoose was what she’d been issued and she’d make it do. Grabbing the control levers, she used thrust manoeuvring to drop herself in an abrupt lunge behind one flight of bombers. “Camel, I am going in with guns.” 

  
  
  
  
  


The stale air of the shattered remains of the ship had soon shown evidence of someone else having been here since her demise. There were the bulkhead doors which had been opened with hydraulic overrides, sometimes footprints in the dust on the floors. Abebech tread lightly, like she were walking in a tomb. 

From her historical perspective on the Earthreign, Goodenough rather fancied she might be thinking exactly that. This had been the crew of a ship whose culture she had started her life studying, apparently. A people now erased from the multiverse by their own hubris and the mysterious formation of the Fracture. 

They didn’t have any of the fancy drones that a proper ground force would to scout ahead. It was just eyeballs. As time went on, Abebech’s insistence on staying quiet and moving quickly were exhausting a crew that after all were the bedraggled survivors of a crashing ship, not an elite invasion force. The initial surge of adrenaline at the prospect of carrying on the fight had faded away. 

It was then, at the slump in their energy, wanting to stop and eat, that they heard noises ahead. Abebech raised her left hand. The rest of the group, their two crude scratch platoons, ground to a halt. “Commander,” Abebech’s eyes never wavered from looking ahead. “Turn out the troops, quietly, to the flanking corridors.” 

With that, she started to walk forward again. Goodenough closed his eyes for a moment. Her voice suggested that she did not expect to return.  _ What the hell are you gaming at now Commander?”  _ But he activated his omnitool at a whisper. “Squads Epsilon and  Gamma, turn out to the left. Eta and Delta, right flanking corridors. Use any debris you can to dig in.”

Abebech had advanced out of sight, and for a moment Goodenough felt an intense wave of melancholy. He liked the woman, liked his Captain, and didn’t want her alone. They settled down, assumed their positions, and waited. When the gunshots started, they never had the chance to advance. 

  
  
  
  
  


The Alliance troopers mustering were suddenly introduced to a hurled grenade. It detonated in their midst as rapid-fire from a pulse rifle split the air. The grenade shook the corridor, and six of them fail. Another four fell to the gun as Abebech turned the corner. 

Another group of troopers advancing on her down the corridor froze in place--no less than eight at once as an inexorable power locked down their muscles. “What are you doing defiling one of the ships of the Terran Reich?” Her voice echoed down the corridor distantly, laced with bitter power. 

A third group turned a corner and were swept by her gun. Her accuracy was inerring and the second group of frozen soldiers did not, could not take advantage of any distraction in her. Twelve soldiers laying dying ahead, ten behind, eight frozen like statues as she lankily, lazily walked past them. 

Then an entire different kind of threat flung herself around the same corner, with a gun barking. She kicked off one of the walls and lunged for Abebech, going for her sword. Abebech tracked with her own carbine and fired, and fired. 

Stunned by the resistance, the woman in the straight, black wig flung herself to the deckplates against the thin cover of an open access hatch into wiring in the bulkhead. For a moment, there was a standoff between the two, pistol and rifle, telepath…

...And telepath. 

“I see River has found some new friends,” the woman-child remarked, staring at Abebech in almost wonder. “And what friends they are.” 

“Your name is Kalista, and you are the new generation of Parliamentary Operative,” Abebech answered matter-of-factly. 

< _ Get out of my head,> _ Kalista answered. 

< _ Get out of my ship,> _ Abebech countered. 

< _ The crew of this ship is our foremothers; and they have been dead three thousand years,> _ Kalista answered, pitting her strength against Abebech. She found the contest shockingly inequal. For a moment, the female Operative faced defeat. 

Then she did something ruthless enough that Abebech seemed to be unprepared for it. Kalista knew, in a heartbeat of realisation, that she was outmatched. Immensely outmatched. Only savagery would turn the tables on the power pressing against her mind, and it had to be fast; within microseconds. That left one option. She shot her own troops that Abebech was in the minds of, controlling, freezing. The headshots were fatal, and as Abebech felt the open-shut nature of The Door taking souls, she froze in a strange state of horror… And ecstasy. 

Kalista took advantage of the distraction, and lunged forward in a single, all-or-nothing effort, and plunged her sword deep into Abebech’s chest. Dark red blood gently drizzled from the wound, strangely oozing like ichor, and Abebech whispered as she toppled back against the wall. “You’re good.” A smile was locked in a rictus on her face.

“Thank you. Why didn’t you expect that?” The blade was straight through the woman’s heart, she’d be dead in a moment, still Kalista was intensely curious about this outlander Telepath and the strange ship she had come in on. 

“I try to think better of people than that,” Abebech replied, oddly composed, and slumped against the wall.


	2. Act 2

#  Act Two

  
  
  


Fei’nur had made sure that even the single squad of Marines on the  _ Heermann  _ was properly equipped; in fact, she had insisted on giving the Security personnel the same equipment as well. That meant Goodenough had two squad support weapons at his disposal when laying out his position in the corridors. 

There was nothing like the savagery of tight, confined quarters fighting, but the Government troops attacking them, the ‘purple bellies’ according to the slang of the out-worlders, were anything but motivated. Their caution suggested they had run into more than they had expected, and it made Goodenough’s throat go dry. He figured that would be the attitude of what was left of them after whatever Abebech had done; but they would have made sure Abebech wouldn’t be coming back. 

_ Well, she did it for us. Not going to waste it now, are we, Johnny?  _ Pistol pressed into hand, smoothed up against one of the great ribs of the ship, the squad weapon near his position fired and fired again, scouring the old, cracked adhesive from the structure of the ship. Charge bursts tore through ancient, corroded bulkheads, too, and the lights failed. But mostly, they kept the heads of the Government troops down.

They were in contact at two places, rapidly becoming four and then five as the Government troops drilled their way through bulkheads into rooms to try and flank the main positions of the  _ Heermann _ ’s crew. They retaliated by an aggressive use of stun and plasma grenades to drive them out of cover, the explosions automatically flipping lenses to full polarisation and sending thunderous booms worthy of a Ship of the Line’s broadside howling down the corridors. 

Abdulmajid came up to him. “Sir, can we make a push toward the Commander, God Willing. We have completely stopped them. I have my reserve squads.”

“We don’t know how many there are,” Goodenough answered. The conversation was abruptly interrupted by some of the Government troops lunging, trying to take advantage of the figures visible in the corridor with the approach of Lt. Mehmet’s squads. But they fired on automatic from the hip, two squads worth, and filled the corridor. Two of the purple-bellies toppled as Goodenough leaned out and joined in with his pistol, though he certainly didn’t hit them himself. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Abdul shrugged. “She’s over there. Come, Commander, what is  _ Heermann  _ without the Abyssinian? There’s none finer.”

“You’re right,” Goodenough muttered and shook his head. “But we might get ourselves all killed.” 

“We must at least try, the rest is up to the Will of God!” 

“...You’re right. Dear Lord. All right.” Goodenough looked at the slight Turkish man, who was shaking with emotional intensity. Abdulmajid was such a private person it was sometimes impossible to figure him out, more alien than an alien at times frankly, but now his emotional commitment to the crew of the  _ Heermann  _ was as clear as Goodenough’s own. 

“Squads, form for attack!” Abdul held his hand up. 

Goodenough stepped out a minute later. “Forward by covering and fire!” Advancing behind hurled grenades, the lead squad pressed down the corridor first. 

Mehmet’s reserves followed. The purple-bellies seemed astonished at their attack. There was a fitful sputtering of their defensive efforts, before they retired. “Come on, forwards!” 

Retreat in this kind of situation was the most deadly act of all. As the Government soldiers tried to fall back, the weapons of the  _ Heermann _ ’s crew spoke without pity. Bringing their squad support weapon forward passed the bodies of a dozen of their foes, they turned left to follow the route that Abebech had gone, the squad weapon covering their right as the manoeuvre also served to flank the Government troops to the enemy’s right flank. 

They must have carried on a hundred meters of corridor, the entire right of the enemy attack collapsing, when they saw it. The piles of bodies,  _ dozens,  _ maybe thirty, sprawled across a corridor and one access room. It brought Goodenough up short. 

There was no sign of Commander Imra, but… Abdulmajid tore at his hair in frustration. 

“God have mercy,” Goodenough muttered. “We know she did this, but if she isn’t here, and they were here…”

“Not yet, Commander! Don’t even say it!” The tactical officer’s eyes lit with a wild fury. “Come on,  _ Heermann!  _ We will continue to attack!” A mass of reinforcements coming up the corridor for the Government defenders stopped short to see their enemies this far forward. Abdulmajid threw his hand up. “Fix-bayonets!” 

_ Oh Christ, he’s not stopping for anything.  _ Goodenough raised his own pistol. “Covering fire! Fix--bayonets! We’ll give them cold steel!” 

The crew of the  _ Heermann  _ had expressions on their face of a mixture of rage--they were terrified for Abebech--and confusion, horror, even. Two men from the mid-19th century were about to order them to execute a  _ bayonet charge  _ in the decks of an old abandoned wreck of a warship against an enemy of unknown strength. 

But they now brought one of the squad weapons forward and had set it up, the crew throwing themselves to the ground and checking the charge as the magnetic clamps engaged on the tripod, then firing a clear burst into the purple-bellies who were still taking cover. The sight of four of their enemies toppling under the heavy and accurate fire gave the  _ Heermann _ ’s crew some confidence. 

Abdul grabbed his utility whistle from his belt, normally intended for getting people to stop doing something unsafe in high noise environments. He glanced sharply to Goodenough.

“Squads forward!” Goodenough dashed forward himself, firing his pistol wildly, but aiming low. 

Abdul blew his whistle as loud as he could. At least three squads, twenty-four armed, participated in the charge. 

What they faced was a most peculiar cultural artefact of the Verse. Cold Steel had a particular reputation in the Inner Planets; it was why the Operatives still carried and practiced with normal, traditional swords. When they saw that compact mass surging down the corridor with the support weapon pinning them in place until the last minute, the purple bellies got  _ intimidated.  _

They never really came to a clash. Instead, the Government troops began to stumble and fall back. Again, the position yielded and retreated. Goodenough and Mehmet surged ahead until they came to the next cross corridor. “Bring the squad gun up!” Goodenough roared. “And bring the rest of our troops forward, we’re getting too strung out! By God, we might just take this ship!” 

  
  
  
  
  


As the fighter attack came on against the  _ Huáscar,  _ her wing struggled to attrite it. Again, and again, the attacks Lar’shan had directed were focused on providing fires against the bombers. They made slashing attack after slashing attack with their greater thrust, rather than mixing themselves into the mass of the immense numbers of Warhammers. More than fifty bombers had been reduced to six. 

Artesia snapped another sharp de-accelerating roll to descend into the bombers. Behind them an entire squadron of Mongeese provided cover. They were Winchester on torpedoes as well as missiles now, but they had their guns and Lar’shan led the way. 

“Donkey, take your shots!” Lar’shan blazed across the field to the left, canting the nose of his fighter off-angle to engage a squadron of Warhammers, adding more cover. A blossom of an explosion noted yet another kill. 

Artesia watched her sight turn green as tone lock sounded in the cockpit, sliding into place behind the bombers. She triggered her forward cannon and one of them was torn apart, not exploding but chunks flying off until the crew ejected. Her stick shook and shields shook the fighter, warnings sounding.

“Donkey, you’re taking debris!” Her wingman warned. 

“No time to worry!” She answered. The Foxbats cut thrust and spun about on their manoeuvring thrusters to engage, not having rear-facing guns. This slowed down their time to range, another form of virtual attrition.  _ Captain Noa, would you trust me with a Gundam now?  _ Artesia wondered. Her sight went over to green again and a second bomber went to pieces. 

Now they were firing at her again. She dropped below their formation by kicking her tail up with the manoeuvring thrusters and firing the main jets, wingman following her through her paces. Lar’shan had already cut back from the left, which meant that he caught them as they were rotating to face an enemy no longer there. 

Lar’shan’s guns chattered and a third bomber disappeared. Artesia, looking up through her bubble cockpit, realised the other three were gone as well. Other squadrons had claimed them. The entire left flank of the bomber formation was gone. 

The right flank, having powered its way through the dispersal-pattern firing of the  _ Huáscar,  _ was continuing to close, preparing to use their point-blank EMP depth charges to take out her shields, better yet to disable her. It was the only chance the Government fleet had. 

“All squadrons, come about. Right group is our’s now!” Lar’shan led a shimmering spearpoint of drive-tails, Artesia grabbing the throttles to throw them forward, main engines burning bright as the Mongeese raced across the battlefield. As they went in, the  _ Huáscar  _ ceased to fire on the fighters and shifted fire to the Government fleet again, directing torpedo salvoes at range against the remaining cruisers, the bright lights of the solar torpedoes racing across the battlefield around her. 

“Camel, this is Donkey,” Artesia spoke into her microphone. “What’s the plan here?”

“We’ll regroup around the  _ Huáscar  _ and take them head-on. There’s not much time left.”

“Head on, Sir?” 

“We’ve got the range for our guns and the targeting systems. If each remaining fighter selects one target and destroys it, we’ve finished their attack. And the bombers are beginning their runs now, we need to support them.” 

“All right, so we’re going straight into it, Sir.”

“There won’t be any other way to get the job done.” He switched to broad beam comms. “ _ All squadrons, prepare to engage head to head, your targets are the bombers, again, get the bombers first. _ ”

She keyed on the open channel herself. “When you get past them, use your jets to come about, you’ll get one more chance!”

“You heard the Leftenant,” Lar’shan chuckled. “On my mark…  _ Mark. _ ”

The wing tore ahead, accelerating past the  _ Huáscar  _ again, the gleaming gray ship left behind as their thrusters burned to full power. Artesia activated her targeting sensors, showing the great host of two hundred fighters and bombers still coming in against their home. 

“All squadrons, watch your formations, parcel out to meet them, one to one.” 

The long range sensors on the Mongeese resolved their targets as they rushed in against them. Even with the jamming from the great wreck on the supralight frequencies, they had resolution in their sublight sensors much superiour to that of their enemies. The targeting recticule went green. Her left gloved hand, ensconced in spacesuit, snapped down to the throttles.  _ One second, two seconds…  _

She pulled the trigger, and a rapid set of particle pulses lanced forward. As they did, she slammed the levers into full recursion. The baffles snapped across the engine thrusters, diverting thrust ahead full as she called for max reverse thrust. 

Slowing rapidly, the inertial dampers were overcome and she felt, for a split second, close to twenty G’s pushing her forward. Her flight suit was designed to compensate and the harnesses kept her fixed rigidly into her acceleration couch. Her fire continued locked right on target, a target which was flashing and exploding before her eyes. She snapped the left throttle back into positive thrust, the baffles dropped, she canted hard to the left and with a tap on her stick sent the manoeuvring thrusters throwing her broadside under the exploding bomber. 

Then she snapped both throttles to neutral, preventing herself from spinning out of control. In front of her, and now tracking behind as her nose continued to follow her stick even as the fighter raced ahead with its remaining conserved velocity, she had another bomber in her sights. Again she pressed the trigger down as she got tone lock. As the bomber came apart, she flung her nose back around to face the enemy fleet and slammed the throttles forward. 

“ _ All fighters, form up. We’re covering our own bombers now. Those Warhammers won’t be able to catch up with us in time!”  _ Shooting clear of the enemy formation, Artesia couldn’t help but see that they only had fifty-four of seventy-two fighters still in action. They had destroyed the bomber attack on the  _ Huáscar,  _ and with her advantages in range, that might be decisive; but it had come at a grim cost. 

Already well familiar with that from the One Year War, she glinted in her cockpit, settled herself in place as the gravity pushed her back. Burning fast and hard, the fighters moved to defend their own. The bombers were commencing their runs. There was no time for worry, and less for regret. She was only eighteen, and she had been an ace in the Federation service, let alone now. 

  
  
  
  
  


“The fighters are starting to retreat, Captain,” Elia said from Ops. “The attack has disintegrated. I’m charting a course for the helm around the wreckage so that any cripples don’t try to ambush us with EMP charges. Our bomber attack is now developing.” 

“Understood, very well done to the Wing. I want to get the Colonel onto that wreck as quickly as possible, still.”

“They still have a large number of gunboat-type vessels hanging back in formation,” Fera’xero noted. “They could intercept any assault landing.”

“Wait for the outcome of the bomber attack, then? We’re still dealing serious damage to their capital ships,” Daria asked. It felt rather murderous; they were receiving no answering fire at all at this range. But the wing was carrying home the attack, and it was for the preservation of  _ their  _ lives that she felt comfortable continuing to hammer the enemy cruisers. 

“I dislike waiting this long, our attacker crew needs  _ assistance. _ The  _ very moment _ it is clear, understood?”

“Understood,” Violeta said sharply. “Course is laid in.”

Elia pursed her lips as another cruiser tumbled out of formation dead. She'd seen the  _ Serenity  _ go in.

  
  
  
  
  
  


River had piloted the  _ Serenity  _ into position against one of the docking collars that had an active light. It had taken some time to secure themselves, but now they were in, armed, and ready to go. 

“All right, the plan is to find the  _ Heermann _ ’s crew and pull them out. We can accommodate all of them for long enough to get back to the  _ Huáscar.  _ Zoe, you’re still not fully better, so you stay behind and guard the ship with Inara.”

“You sure, Sir?” She had shown up in the bay with her short carbine. “I think you need every hand you can get.” 

“You’ve got …”

“A newborn? Yes, I do, Sir. The Alliance doesn’t care about that, Sir.” 

Mal opened his mouth and closed it again. “All right.  _ Kaylee,  _ you’re staying behind with the ship.” 

“With pleasure, Cap’m!” It wasn’t like she much liked leaving  _ Serenity,  _ let alone for a prospective fight. 

“We’re all really just there to cover her, ain’t we, Captain?” Jayne gestured to River. 

“Yes,” River answered, still dressed in the black uniform she had been given, and now sporting one of the  _ Huáscar’ _ s charge rifles. With that, she walked through the airlock. 

“ _ And to keep Simon safe so he can help anyone who’s wounded, _ ” Mal hollared, and started off after her. 

There was something sinister about the enormous logo that greeted them as they stepped onto the dead hulk. It was etched like a memory, a tombstone, of a long ago trauma. Mal looked at it for a long time. “Those look like Operatives’ swords,” he remarked to the image of the crossed blades surmounting the laurels of victory. 

“Was this one of the interstellar cryo-ships?” Zoe asked. 

“Whatever it is, it’s as old as hell,” Jayne muttered, stalking ahead to keep up with River. 

“No, it’s more than that,” Simon explained. “With that jamming field, it has to be capable of FTL. So it’s not something that came with us from Earth-that-Was.” 

“Then what was it?” 

River turned around for a moment at the front of their little column. “One of the last survivors of a destroyed people,” she answered. “There’s suffering in every bulkhead.”

The other members of  _ Serenity’s  _ crew exchanged an uncomfortable glance. That was the kind of tone that River usually used when she was serious--and right. 

  
  
  
  
  


The  _ Huáscar _ ’s three squadrons of Kestrel bombers sectioned themselves in ten flights of four. Each targeted a separate ship. The lead of Bomber Two, Captain (courtesy Major) Vanessa Carter, brought her tubes green. They replaced the multi-function ground attack rotary with a set of two angled-downward launch tubes. Each one held ten solar torpedoes packed in nose to tail, being electrically fired; something like an old MetalStorm weapon, the chain firing of the torpedoes produced a massive salvo against a single target--or two, but no more. 

Morale had been dubious as they forged ahead despite the lack of escort, taking long-range fire from the cruisers, with the Government gunboats rapidly closing on them with a pincer movement. That changed, and for the better. “All craft, this is Bomber Two Lead. The Wing’s coming back in. Hold steady against those gunboats. All craft stand by your missiles.” 

“Missiles standing by.”

“Target them and fire on lock,” she clarified a moment later, activating her own auto-track targeting pod and selecting missile control. 

“Hey Boss,” her GIB, Michael Ginty, piped up. “We’re taking missile tracking sweeps now. They’re trying to lock on.” 

“All birds, missile engagement. Dump decoys and activating jamming pods! Get your anti-fighter salvoes off first!” Her pod sounded tone lock and with anti-fighter missiles selected, she depressed the trigger, salvoing eight of them off the rails toward the incoming gunboats. With nuclear-scale warheads they were far more powerful than anything they’d faced from the enemy so far. 

“Bomber Two, break left and reacquire targets on the forward part of the enemy fleet!” She banked as the decoys flew on ahead, and then brought thrust up to full power. The squadrons to the right went right as their decoys stayed on ahead as well. The trick from that was that while it split them up into two groups, it would look to the sensors on the incoming gunboats like there was still one formation that had just launched decoys to each side, a typical decoy deployment pattern. 

The gunboats fired their missiles and began evasives against the incoming fire. Chief Ginty punched the control that began to vent plasma from the warp drives, useless at the moment anyway, to create an anti-laser tracking screen. The bombers swept under the missile fire, tracking with the decoys. Those that turned against them failed in final homing. 

Their own missiles had considerably more luck. Their seeker heads were simply designed against a much greater level of opposition than the Government Navy was used to dealing with. Several of the gunboats nailed by multiple impacts exploded. 

That created the perfect chaos for Lar’shan to lead the fighter wing in. Selecting their targets they dove with guns onto the gunboats in a series of blistering passes more like strafing heavy targets than fighting fighter to fighter duels--some of the gunboats were huge, several thousand tonnes. 

As the fighters took over handling the gunboats for them, the bombers finalised their approaches to their re-selected targets. “We’ve got tone lock, boss!”

“Pickle the load!” The Kestrel surged and bucked as the launchers heaved ten rounds each in the space of a second. It was like ten  _ Huáscar _ s had fired full torpedo broadsides simultaneously. 

The enemy ships actually had excellent anti-missile defences, and the torpedoes fired from bombers never reached the same speed as from the rapid acceleration tubes of a starship. Enough torpedoes still got through to slosh the enemy capships about, destroying one, two, three of them outright. Others were tumbling out of control with misaligned engines from shock damage or thruster banks not responding to bridge commands. 

The bombers pulled away, leaving the burning gunboats in their wake that the fighters continued to attack. They were the last threat to the  _ Huáscar,  _ and they were falling fast. 

  
  
  
  
  


In the midst of the enemy fleet stood only one  _ Trebuchet  _ and five corvettes, now. The  _ Huáscar  _ approached by a circuitous route, recovering her bombers as they approached. 

“The remaining gunboats are fully engaged by the wing, Captain,” Elia’s voice bubbled with energy. “We’ve got a clear lane for landing the original landing force. They don’t have enough firepower left to stop us.” Another furious group of forward torpedo salvoes and PPC shots punctuated the disparity, driving deep into the hull of one of the corvettes. 

“Land the landing force, then, and keep us close to cover the attack! Give that squadron fire to dissuade them from interference.”

“Land the landing force!” Elia relayed to Fei’nur. They each knew what was meant for them.

“Coming about to port,” Violeta affirmed, putting the  _ Huáscar  _ between the landing vectors and the badly attrited enemy. Now, Daria began to give fires to starboard. 

Zhen’var watched the display warily - this had already been a more difficult battle than she had hoped, and the situation was fluidly,  _ concernedly _ uncertain.

“Captain,” Fera’xero’s voice betrayed his concern as his vocoder flashed. “We are picking up indications despite the interference, on long-range scans, of thrust byproducts. About fourteen hours out if it’s a squadron of local technology vessels, which I believe it is.”

“Then time is short. I want to know  _ whose _ vessels those are, soon enough to make hard decisions, Science.”

“Understood, Captain. If we can detail two runabouts to triangulate, I can have the answer in about ten minutes.”

“Granted. The wing has been hard pressed, but additional escorts would, I think, not be out of place if it is possible.

“It'll have to be bombers, Captain. We have no fighters back aboard yet except casualties,” Elia interjected.

“If they can turned about with missiles, to salvo and run if there are hostile fighters, let it be done, otherwise get the runabouts on the way with all possible speed.”

“PriFly, arm those first two wings of bombers with missiles if you can,” Elia directed. 

“Confirm, Ops. Slinging missiles on the bombers,” Stasia answered. She shook her head and looked around at her people. “One more nutty thing to do. Get on it, guys.” There were far too few fighters in the air than she cared to think about, now. 

  
  
  
  


Ca’elia had pushed her way deep into the heart of the ancient ship. At times it seemed like extensive repair work had been going on. Other times, she broke into sectors where there was nothing, just the dust of aeons. Finally, she approached the keel, where a cluster of heavy transfer lifts ran the length of the ship inside of the massively armoured structure, accessible through hatch-secured doglegs. 

There was no gravity here, and she had kicked her way down into the transfer tubes. It was just in time to encounter a group of twenty or more purple bellies mustering to come out with heavy squad support weaponry. Something was up, and clearly, the area Abebech had identified as the bridge was occupied. 

_ Situation desperate, but not serious! Analysis: Attack!  _ Ca’elia’s thoughts seemed to slow. Her hand shot out to grab a railing and change her vector as the young Dilgar’s rifle snapped up. “ _ Chew on this, you pus-filled boils!” _ A fusillade of shots cracked out, the sheer insanity of her decision still suppressed by the adrenaline surging into her veins.

The purple-bellies, struggling with their guns under the zero-gravity conditions, stared at her in shock as she sprayed fire across them. The shots were near enough to be aimed that several of them tumbled away, wounded or slain. The squad weapons followed, let go in the chaos, as several of the troopers struggled to gain one of the hatches and use it as both cover and a position to brace themselves to fire back from.

A leg kicked out to keep the Lieutenant moving forward, twisting to keep a line of fire on the Government troops. The small part of her brain that was still rational was  _ screaming _ at her about doing such a thing, but her eyes were cold and pitiless as shots spat from her rifle. As the distance closed, Ca’elia tried to gauge the point at which going for her pistol and omniblade would be called for.

Her enemies didn’t know what to make of the precipitously conducted attack. Four of them clustered around one of the hatches finally brought their rifles into action. Rifles.  _ Slugthrowers.  _ Of course; she was tearing through them because they couldn’t fire  _ at all  _ in the circumstances, the recoil was just too great, without some kind of bracing. A few of the shots pang’d off metal near her and violently ricocheted down the tube. 

With a sharp flip, her legs kicked out, catching one of the handholds on a wall opposite and sending her at right angles to her previous vector, diving for cover in another of the access hatched that branched off the access tube.

The Dilgar’s fire raked into one of the purple-bellies who had managed to open fire. He spun off, bubbles of blood floating away from charred flesh. The other three shifted fire and again engaged with her, as another small group tried to push and kick their way to the hatch. 

They had almost made it when fire came from  _ above,  _ and a moment later the three men at the hatch when spinning down into the centre of the tube. Following them was Mal, bracing himself on the hatch grab-irons as he opened fire on the group pushing toward them. 

River followed, her Alliance rifle almost comically oversized in her hands, but she didn’t use it. Instead, several of the purple-bellies went limp as she  _ stared  _ at them. Jayne followed, and finally Zoe, covering Simon. With the considerable increase in firepower the fight was over in a minute. 

Mal couldn’t help a grin. “Well, looks like you needed a bit of help, Lieutenant…”

“I don’t think she did, actually,” River called up from where she was idly tumbling in the midst of the tube, her victims now asleep.

“Ca’elia, sirs and madams. The bridge of this derelict is ahead, Captain Imra sent me forward to open a path to it. Your assistance, furthermore, is gratefully acknowledged and appreciated.” Green eyes shone as she looked further ahead. “I should push on, the enemy’s designs are best frustrated by aggressive action.”

“We were supposed to help them evacuate and then get the hell out, Captain,” Jayne reminded Mal. “What’s in it for us?” 

Hanging onto the grab-iron, Mal regarded the sharp looking, well-spoken Dilgar. He was going to answer when he saw that River had already started off. “ _ River _ !” Simon exclaimed. 

“...She needs us…” River answered, floating down the immensity of the keel-tube, leaving Mal to stare at Ca’elia. Then he shrugged. “Jayne, if you end up in Hell, it’s mighty fine advice to  _ keep going. _ ”

“So I have heard.” With that, the Dilgar woman kicked off once more, moving quickly to build speed forward.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Get her into the stasis tube,” the female Operative was ordering, the CIC complex of the great old warship alive with communications as they tried to coordinate both the battle outside of the ship, that they were losing, and the battle inside the ship, that they were starting to do better with. 

“Into the stasis tube?” The Alliance doctor looked up from his wounded. “Ma’am, this woman has been stabbed through the heart. It’s  _ pointless. _ Why’d you even have her brought back?” 

“Doctor, she’s  _ not dead,”  _ Kalista answered. “And if she wakes up, we are quite likely to all die.” 

“The hell… What do you mean by …” His words were cut off in mid-breath as gloved hands flexed and shattered the cuffs restraining them. The hog-tied and trussed form of Abebech Imra was no longer unconscious, ropes cracking and snapping under the raw strength displayed. One of those hands snapped up in a blur of motion, then, and grabbed the Doctor and yanked him down, turning him at once into a human shield with a terrifying iron grip.

“Too late! Guards, everything at her!” Kalista felt a chill cross her heart. It had been  _ so close  _ before, and… She rallied her defences to a sudden power descending across them. 

At least six purple-bellies spun with their rifles to respond to her order. She felt the crushing assault on her mind, hideous shapes in splashes of red and blood, strange beasts of Hell with their skin turned inside out and organs on the outside, monsters with cthonous limbs scrying, screaming, ripping at her mental defences. The open-shut of the Doctor’s death from friendly fire completed the effect.

Kalista's own defences were the rudimentary ones of a telepath trained by mundanes, in a mundane school to create the perfect assassin. With River’s disappearance some effort had been put into creating a mental defence for the new generation of Operative, but a matter of mundanes teaching telepaths was insufficient. This woman was as strong as an ox, as skilled as a scalpel. The defences that Kalista put in her way melted under an assault that was as psychologically draining as it was effective. 

She collapsed under the assault, and it was  _ her  _ gun that spoke first, firing at her own men. Her aim, her training, her discipline, and her speed were all precise, and as she fired, Abebech leveraged herself up, with the remaining  _ chains  _ snapping. She pointed her hand at once group of advance purple-bellies and in a blur of blue and black shimmering energy wreathing half of her body, entrapped them into a singularity. There were  _ screams  _ at that.

Kalista’s troops were falling left and right. More powerful bursts of energy were directed from Abebech’s body as her sweat glimmered red. Abebech, in complete control, fired a gun in her off-hand as complement to the biotic attacks, one elbow jabbed into the limp warm body held against her, and forced Kalista to use her own gun against her own troops as they screamed in confusion and, yes, outright fear. < _ Your assessment was correct since I have more than one heart, though the outcome would have been worse if I did not. However, it neglected the fact that I was never unconscious at all, Kalista,> _ the voice that owned her, that possessed her, that had puppeted her body spoke with deliberate calmness. 

< _ The second one was installed to make sure that people like you were kept safe from people like me,> _ she continued cryptically. Men screamed at her resurrection, as wrists and ankles bloody, she snatched one of the unneeded rifles and opened fire. Kalista was made to turn in time with her. 

Groups lunged for her, but they were more than inadequate on the attack. Several purple-bellies at once would find their motor-neurons misfiring, others die as their brains instructed their hearts to stop. Seizures dropped more. Abebech was pitiless, finishing even those that fell to make sure that none rose again. Her snarling mental monsters stood like guard dogs over Kalista’s shackled consciousness. 

Kalista could see in her own eyes, even as they were controlled by another, what Abebech’s looked like, her glasses removed, finally opened. 

They were red. Solid crimson-red, no white, no other colour, except for the utterly huge black pupil. Abebech shoved the Doctor’s fallen corpse aside--she had been holding it pressed close to her as a shield the whole while--and fired another sharp burst. The last of the purple-bellies in the room fell. Just like that, the entire thing was undone.

< _ A ruse!? You let yourself be stabbed through the heart for a ruse!?> _

_ <You are a descendant of the blood of the Terran Reich, put in you by hideous violation of the remains of those who struggled, fought and died. That’s why you’re going to survive. Of course it was a ruse. You haven’t the power to take me, but I couldn’t help my crew to win without showing them things I could not let them see.> _ She gestured toward the inner bridge, and inexorably Kalista found herself forced to walk in measured steps. 

< _ Perhaps if you’d been trained from birth by the Psi-Corps or another experienced organisation, that would have been different. But you have been a Goddess to the Mundanes in this system -- you didn’t know what you were missing.> _

< _ What. The. Hell. Are. You?> _ She cried in desperate wonder, defiant anger, as Abebech slammed the circular hatch shut and dogged it. 

< _ An Esper. Just like you are.> _

_ <Like Hell. You’re something more.> _

_ <I am an Esper. I’ve never let the rest define me.> _ She made steady, measured steps, almost reverent, to the command chair, and sat into it, the old cushions breaking up from the age as weight was put into them, but they would do well enough for now. 

“Code de Zugangs Alpha Sigma Nought Zeta Epsilon Tau, Beginnen l’Authentifizierung neuronschnittstelle.”

“Authentifizierungssequenzaet commencat,” the computer spoke, and Kalista gasped.

They had not made the computer speak in the decades of the project. One of the reasons for her creation had been that the scientists of the Alliance had concluded the ship functioned on telepathic interfaces. She had been brought here months before to test it, and failed. 

Abebech spun the chair around to face her. As she did, a metallic probe extended out from it into her neck. Her eyes rolled back into her head. Kalista steeled herself to lunge.

< _ Forget it. I’m still in full control. Come here.> _ The command was inexorable, overwhelming. Kalista began to walk to the command chair. 

< _ I just needed someone to get me to one of the neural interfaces,> _ Abebech explained with a kind of smirking bemusement evident through her mind Kalista’s, as the panels on the bridge lit up around her. Across the ship, bulkhead doors began to close again, snapping into place and trapping scientists and troops alike into their positions, as information flowed through computers, still functional after three thousand years. 

And then she reached out, and dragged Kalista against herself. < _ Now, child,  _ **_forget_ ** _ me. Remember  _ **_them._ ** _ > _

  
  
  
  
  


“Captain,” Elia jerked on the bridge of the  _ Huáscar.  _ “There’s a power surge on the derelict.” 

“ _ What?” _ Surprise suffused Zhen’var’s voice, she couldn’t help it. Power, from that  _ wreck _ , that could be…  _ very… problematic. _

“Captain, it’s going live across the boards,” Fera’xero affirmed. “Subsystems power transmission across at least eighty percent of the intact hull is going active. I’m detecting reactor power signatures… This is like nothing we’ve seen before, Captain. It’s generating a hyperspace band signature. The  _ reactor  _ is.” 

“Record  _ everything _ , stand-by to retreat if necessary!”  _ We are in far over our heads… _

“They’re hailing us,” Bor’erj at comms craned his neck to the Captain. “Wait, no, it’s Commander Imra…” he just activated the bridge circuit anyway. 

“Commander Union of Allied Planets squadron, you are Instructed and Commanded to surrender. Boarding forces from the ASV  _ Huáscar  _ have full control of this vessel’s electronics and will commence fire with the main batteries at our discretion.” Abebech’s voice was colder than usual, so much of pressed vacuum. 

Captain Zhen’var froze, barely keeping naked shock from crossing her face. They had done  _ what!? _ Captured the derelict and… somehow gotten the  _ weapons  _ to work?

Elia was grinning about as wide as her mouth allowed. “Captain, the surviving ships of the enemy squadron are signalling their surrender.” 

  
“... Redirect our Marines to take the ships and get them under control, then…” Shaking her head, Zhen’var marveled.  _ I am going to have to put Imra up for promotion again. _


	3. Act 3

# Act Three

  


The scene when the crew of the  _Serenity_ and Ca’elia arrived was nothing short of apocalyptic, with bodies by the dozen strewn around the bridge in the apparent violence of combat. The outer support spaces around the heavily armoured command deck had been turned into a charnel house.

_ This is worse than anything I’ve seen before… _  Ca’elia thought to herself, darting from cover to cover in quiet rushes.  _This isn’t the crew… or is it? I’d have been challenged by now, I would have thought…_

“Did your shipmates do this, Lieutenant?” Mal asked, having stopped the others to set up a perimeter, except Simon, who fitfully checked for survivors and shook his head a few times.

“I confess to uncertainty, Captain Reynolds. I do not believe so.” Ca’elia kept pushing ahead, checking her omnitool fitfully, as she pushed for the bridge.

“Well, whomever it was learned the purple-bellies pretty good.”

Ahead of them was the final pressure bulkhead, armoured, for the main bridge. As Ca’elia approached, the handle spun and the door began to open, as though of its own accord.

Eyes widening, the young Lieutenant dodged sideways for the nearest cover she could find, waving behind her for the crew of  _Serenity_  to do the same.  _If they’re who did this, I hope they’re friendly…_

“Leftenant, stand to.” Abebech strode out of the door, a different pair of sunglasses on, and a UAP uniform jacket pulled over her own blouse. She looked levelly to Mal. “Captain Reynolds.”

“ _Captain, ma’am!”_ Stiffening sharply, Ca’elia spun on a heel in utter shock, rifle at the ready as she turned to cover the way they had come.  _But, how, what…?!_

“I activated the internal defence mechanisms. The automatic cannon did this,” she said, quietly. “Leftenant, Captain Reynolds. This ship is from my home universe, if very old. It recognised me as a valid commander--for a few reasons. Where’s River Tam, Captain?”

“She was…” Ca’elia trailed off, eyes quickly scanning the last place she had seen the young woman.

The girl wandered back in, looking calmly at Abebech. “What happened to the Operative?”

“Her name is Kalista. This way, please.” She turned back to the bridge. River padded over to follow her into it.

“Just the two of us,” River added a moment later, and closed the hatch again.

  
  
  
  


_ “You bright sons of Mars who stand on the right, _

_ Whose armour doth shine like the bright stars of night, _

_ Saying, Willy, dearest Willy, you’ve listed full soon, _

_ For to serve as a royal Enniskillen draggoon,” _

Goodenough was singing, with pistol at his side and rifle slung over his shoulder. He whipped his braid behind his head and cut off when he saw Mal. “Well, Captain Reynolds. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Didn’t expect to make it this far, Commander,” he replied with a laugh. “They’d bust you back to private for singing as a purple-belly, you know.”

“I suppose that’s why they lost. L’tenant,” he turned his attention to Ca’elia. “Where’s the Captain? Captain Zhen’var says she’s taken control of the ship.”

“On the bridge, sir, with Miss Tam. I believe they have taken the Government Operative prisoner.” She gave her report stiffly. “I met Captain Reynolds while seeking to make it to the bridge, his crew assisted my efforts in doing so.”

“Well, you made it. Quite good work, L’tenant.”

Abdulmajid turned the corner with another of the squads. “Commander, where is she?”

Goodenough laughed and pointed. “In there, controlling the ship, as fine as a dandy.”

Abdul stared for a moment, and then shook his head and started laughing. “Sometimes I think she’s djinn, but I don’t care, I’d still follow her! God be praised.”

  
  
  


River and Abebech regarded each other behind the blast door for a quiet moment. Kalista was strapped into one of the subordinate chairs, her skin shock white, but breathing steadily. Abebech gestured around her, and finally began to speak.

“River, this ship is a deeply significant discovery…”

< _That you know all about already? >_

_ <Yes,>  _ Abebech answered. She didn’t attempt to hide it, and River's prompt bluntness made her smile with uncharacteristic warmth. < _That I know all about. >_

_ <I’m still not really well, but I understand that this ship is something deeply important to you. It’s obvious. At an emotional level, not just militarily.> _

< _It is one of the last surviving vessels of the Terran Reich, what modern people in my home universe call the Earthreign. A society of Espers, created in a revolt against our own genocide, by the unfathomable fragments of malicious alien intelligence, which can reprogram reality itself. Espers were the only part of humanity that could see what was happening. We fought back against our own extermination. And, we came to rule the great bulk of humanity in the Terran Reich. It was inevitable, perhaps, in the circumstances, that mundanes were left with no rights… The peasants of the civic nations of telepaths. Thus, long after it is gone, it is reviled. >_

_ <You talk like you were a part of it.>   _ River’s eyes narrowed and she took a step forward, before starting to look around.

< _It’s hard to explain because you don’t have a culture, a tapestry of oppression behind you. In the modern day, Espers are again mistrusted, and in some societies, as reviled as they once were. There’s just one crucial difference. Before, we were told it was our own fault, that we were insane, evil, and there was no answer. But after the Terran Reich? My dear, every Esper at least remembers when we were Kings. >_

< _Is that why you didn’t kill Kalista? It was all you, wasn’t it? >_

_ <Yes. It was all me. And yes, of course that’s why I didn’t kill her. Espers don't kill Espers. Not where I came from. She is your sister, my niece, really; a heir of the Reich, just like you are. Your genes, River, were taken from the corpses of this ship. I saw it in them. They modified you from embryos in the assisted fertility clinics of the Alliance. You share enough genes with your blood family for convincing purposes, but substantial parts of your genetic material including most of your mitochondria are based on selected samples recovered from mummified corpses on this ship. Of course, the databanks of the  _ Francesco de Trier  _are badly corrupted, but mostly confirm what I thought from the start. This system is artificial. >_

_ <Artificial? Your crewmates did postulate that.>  _ River walked from console to console, quietly taking in the readouts, the condition, even the ergonomics. < _Who could create an entire system? >_

< _They didn’t create the components. They moved them. They were trying to create a refuge from a great war. > _Abebech turned back to the old command chair, and gently lowered herself into it. < _And I don’t think their genetic resurrection was an accident._ > She reached into her pocket and fished out the nameplate for the Reaver ship.

**Weyland-Yutani**

River stared at it, and a flash of memories of contractors, scientists, researchers in the Academy, flooded back into her. But this time, Abebech was there, gently, sure, and patient. She stabilised the girl through the memories, the flood of information which confirmed precisely what Abebech had thought. The firm had been intimately involved in the development of Telepaths for the Union of Allied Planets.

She slowly regained herself, to find that Abebech had risen to embrace her, with the calm confidence of a mother. She smiled, gently tugged away at Abebech’s arms, and took a step back to turn and face her, looking up. The smile remained on her lips. < _Thank you. So what makes Weyland-Yutani special? >_

_ <They also existed in my home universe,>  _ Abebech said simply. < _The statistical probability of the corporate formations and mergers existing in precise sequence in multiple universes steadily approaches zero. It was an important defence contractor to the Terran Reich. It was created to engineer the society of the settlers of this system. > _

< _An interesting supposition. In probabilistic terms, I can’t disagree with you. It is the most likely explanation. > _River looked around the bridge again. < _So I’m a chimaera myself. Partially the River that was_ supposed  _to be and partially a crewmember of this vessel. >_

_ <If you’re a chimaera, everyone is.> _

_ <That counterargument is also like saying I’m my own mother, Abebech.>  _ Her eyes shined with bemusement as she glanced back Commander Imra’s way.

< _We are all a little bit our own mother, > _she replied. The bemusement carried in her voice even if it was masked behind the ubiquitous glasses. < _I can control this vessel in part because it recognises me. That was supposed to be Kalista’s job--or before her, you. But it’s more than that. You need encrypted **thoughts** to be recognised as a valid commander of this ship. As it happens, I carry the necessary encrypted thoughts to not merely be recognised as a commander, but to appoint other officers. They are a more valuable archaeological artefact than any physical thing, I assure you.>_

River’s eyes flashed and she twirled. < _And you’ll give them to me? Just. Like. That? >_

< _Captain Zhen’var’s valiant courage in the defence of her values sometimes borders on the recklessness of Captain Arturo Prat, the commander struck down on the decks of her ship’s old Terran namesake. She will do what is right--and count no cost for herself. But I play a longer game, River Tam. I serve the Alliance for a purpose, a true one I might add, but a purpose. The hour is not yet at hand. Zhen’var would take_ Huáscar  _to Londinium and end the government at the point of a gun. >_

_ <And just like Mal said, the people of even the outer worlds would turn against us for siding with aliens and outsiders, and they would fight. They would resist your superior technology with the same guerrilla tactics that we would use against them.> _

_ <Correct,>  _ Abebech said, going back to sit in the command chair. < _However, if the computers of the ship recognise you as the Captain of the_ Francesco de Trier,  _though she is old and lame and half a ruin, Malcolm Reynolds will have a base from which to lead the New Resistance to victory against the Alliance. A clean victory, fairly won, with only ruins discovered in your own system to aid you, not foreign allies. >_

_ <It’s a great idea,>  _ River answered. < _But we still need to rescue my sisters, and that means the_ Huáscar.>

< _I am sure that can be arranged. Now, I ask you… Come here. Let me give you the birthright of a mother you never knew. The Last Argument of Telepaths: The command codes of a_ Vengeur  _class Dreadnought. >_

River took one measured step after another, and stopped, as Abebech reached out. Took her hands in her own, glove to glove. < _Once, we were Kings, > _the dark woman p’spoke emphatically. It trembled with emotions of incredible age.

  
  
  


“Well… At least Commander Imra survived,” Will said as he stepped to Zhen’var’s side on the bridge, the ship down to Condition Yellow, watching the assault transports board the ships of Government Navy that had surrendered. “We’ll need to figure out the condition of the  _Heermann_ and get salvage and support teams over there. That ship was in better shape than we thought, though I don’t have the faintest idea how.”

“It lasted this long, that speaks well for the original quality, but even so…” Zhen’var glanced to the display again. “It makes me rather wary. Try and get us close enough to pick up personal comms from any survivors, do you think? Abebech left us precious little information to work with.”

“Get us close enough for short-range comms,” Will directed to Violeta. “And, science, try to determine where the  _Heermann_ went down on the surface.” He looked at the three remaining UAP ships that had survived to surrender, along with many fighters. “This is going to be a mess to handle. Do we … Have any information on where that ship in front of us came from? It has to be connected with the colonisation effort.”

“No, I do not think so… I do not have any proper suspicion of it, Commander, but something about that ship feels, looks…  _different_ , even with post-colonization regression. It does not match the stations in Sol.”

“I believe there used to be a unit crest in the shape of a shield on the bow,” Elia interjected, bringing up an image of a battered and scoured section of the hull where, faintly, colourful markings might have once been.

“It doesn’t tell us  _much,_ but whatever it was, it was human,” Fera’xero spoke, stepping down to show Zhen’var a display of isotope analysis. “The hull’s material was forged in orbit of a star matching Sol with ninety-nine percent certainty. As for the  _Heermann,_ ” using his omnitool he shifted the viewscreen image forward until he focused in on a crumpled set of docking bay doors, and then adjusted it to increase magnification as the  _Huáscar_ drifted gently alongside the dreadnought that had twenty-seven times her bulk. “She was put down gently inside one of the hangar bays.”

“Commander Imra remains a marvel and a prodigy at commanding ships… there will be survivors, Commander.” Zhen’var moved back to her chair, already feeling better. “The rest is a mystery, but perhaps one that we will have time to explore once our crew is reunited.”

“Then I’ll go ahead and organise parties to locate the crew and Commander Imra,” Will answered. “Though, just for a slightly longer-term problem; we do need to get the  _Heermann off_ the ship, especially if we’re forced to withdraw. We can’t let the UAP find an interuniversal drive. With the ship crippled, how are we going to pull her back into her bay? I’ll try to think of something… But we do need to be cognizant of it.”

Zhen’var had a rueful look on her face. “Let Engineering know we need another miracle.”

  
  
  
  


About an hour later, Abebech and River emerged to an antechamber bustling with activity. Goodenough, Mehmet and Ca’elia were organising data-acquisition systems, by using the systems of arriving personnel from the  _Huáscar_ to pirate the connections that had been created in painstaking decades of research by the Government research personnel.

“Take the Operative in the secured bridge to quarters XC-1010,” Abebech said to Chief Hernandez. “Full guard, but she won’t wake up for another ten hours or so with what we did to her.”

“Are you sure of that, Captain?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Captain!” Goodenough turned to her. “Attention on the deck!”

  
“At ease,” she shook her head. “It is quite all right.”

“No, Captain, it is not. We thought we lost you, Ma’am!” Abdulmajid exclaimed.

“Oh, come now. No need to be sentimental. It was just that the easiest way to gain control of the ship was to let myself be captured. Too risky to risk telling you, of course. You might have stunned me.”

“ _My God, Captain,_ you let yourself be captured? That’s how this happened?” Goodenough exclaimed.

“Oh yes,” Abebech nodded simply, adjusting the fit of her captured UAP jacket with a shrug. “It was a calculated risk, and reasonable, too; the Operative is a telepath, but she is neither as strong nor as well trained as I.”

“What if there was more than one? Ma’am, that...”

Abebech raised a gloved finger. “Jonathan, I appreciate the concern. However, I did know the mettle of my foe before executing the plan. I had what I need to control this ship from the start. She’s a vessel of the Earthreign…” She glanced at her omnitool. “And I suppose I will be explaining to Captain Zhen’var as well. Though depending on her preference I may field this in private.”

“ _Huáscar_  Actual, calling  _ Heermann  _ Actual,  _ Huáscar  _ Actual, calling  _ Heermann  _ Actual _ … _ ”

“ _Heermann_ Actual,” Abebech answered. “Captain, I am in the antechamber of the bridge of the dreadnought, and we continue to have limited control. What are your instructions?”

“There is an unknown force of local ships approaching, scouts are out to attempt to identify them. We have taken heavy fighter losses. I do not wish to be pinned here. Are you able to drop the jamming field?”

“Yes, Captain,” Abebech answered promptly. “That won’t be a problem.”

“Please do so. What do you require from  _Huáscar_ if we must get under-way?”

“I don’t think that’s an advisable course of action, Captain. The  _Francesco de Trier_ is too important to abandon,” Abebech answered after a moment’s pause, her voice almost faltering at the name of the ship.

“Understood, Commander.” Zhen’var had paused for a long moment and the tone her normally unflappable subordinate was using. “Then we will hold, as we must.” She looked up and glanced about the bridge. “I trust Commander Imra. We are  _staying._ ”

“Well, of course, Captain--she knows the name of the Ship? A human name?” Will asked.

Abebech, on her side of the comm line, walked back into the bridge, activating a console and interfacing with it. A moment later, Fera’xero, who had returned to his board, saw the jamming field disappear like a rubber band being snapped.

“A matter to be discussed later, Commander Atreiad. I believe she has some keen interest in distant history. If the mains are back on-line… how long to charge the warp coils, Helm?”

“Ten minutes to complete re-start checks,” Violeta answered after confirming with Anna. “Four to charge.”

“Captain,” Abebech’s voice came back on the feed. “May I speak to you in private?”

“Get on it, Helm.” Zhen’var had a pensive look on her face as she pondered how strange her attacker commander was acting. “Commander, of course. Stand by. Commander Atreiad, you have the conn.” She called behind her as she started walking briskly for her ready room.

“I have the conn,” Will repeated formally.

Abebech waited a minute. “Captain… I need a team of scientists, engineers and security personnel under Protocol XCJ-15.”

_ Imminent risk of unauthorised Interuniversal Technology Proliferation. _

Zhen’var’s face paled from where she’d tapped into comms as soon as the hatch closed. “... I understand. Protocol XCJ-15, invocation recorded and understood. Can you explain anything  _else_  on this channel?”

“Captain, Yes, so I will be plain with you. The  _Francesco de Trier,_ hull number CS.1178, was built at Sol in 2908 at the  _Chantier auf d’Gammelon,_ Terran Reich Starfleet Ship Procurement Command. Captain, this is a vessel of the  _Earthreign._ ”

“Arey?! Ye lajawab hai… a vessel of the  _Earthreign?_ Wait one, Commander.” Zhen’var swallowed. “Captain to Engineering, Security and Science, Priority Override, conference comms.”

“Captain?” Anna sounded confused and irritated.

“Ma’am,” Janice Armstrong was in charge on the  _Huáscar_ was Fei’nur handling the boarding operations.

“Captain, is this about the conversation with Commander Imra?” Fera’xero asked from the bridge.

“XCJ-15 has been invoked. I need teams from each of you aboard that derelict. They will take direction from Commander Imra. I will explain more later. The matter is one of of fundamental Alliance security.  _Expedite_.”

There was a chorus of affirmatives, for it was clear Zhen’var intended obedience in ignorance, and the situation brooked nothing else.

The Captain’s expression was still pensive and showed real hints of strain when she returned to the bridge. “Captain has the conn.”  _The Earthreign… an artifact of it, a **ship**  as intact as that, here…? _“Give me running timers on my screen, to warp capability and to contact with the unknown squadrons approaching.”

“Aye, Captain.” Elia brought them up.

Abebech was still on the line. “Captain, I have two neutron cannon and five turbolaser batteries responding to computer control.”

“Understood, Commander. We may need them. I have teams on the way to you now, we will stand to and defend your position.”

“Thank you, Captain. I have six dead, and seventeen wounded. We will be arranging transport of all to the  _Huáscar_ ’s sickbay.” That was an ugly cost, more than 25% of the  _Heermann_ ’s crew, though it included both the battle and the boarding action after. Of course, the  _Huáscar_ herself had lost eleven pilots dead in the action, out of one hundred and fifty-two engaged.

“Of course. We will be standing by for your casualties. I will have warp drive in some minutes.

“Thank you, Captain.  _de Trier,_ signing off.”

_ Only Abebech could go from crashing an attacker to commanding a battleship thousands of years old that should not exist.  _ “Alert Sickbay, six dead and seventeen wounded from  _Huáscar_  coming in via direct teleport.”

“Alert sent, Captain,” Elia affirmed. “We are five minutes from having warp speed up to Warp Five at your command, Captain. Longer for higher speeds, there’s been some issues with the crystal alignment, but we can bypass them at low warp to run direct off the naqia reactors.”

“We should not need more than tactical warp.  _Should_. Now, are these incoming ships friendly, hostile, or a third party…?”

“Hostile. It’s a UAP Government fleet,” Fera’xero supplied. “I’ve been able to match enough of the signatures to be confident in it, Captain.  _Keelah,_ there’s fifty ships, too. Now twelve hours out.”

“Yet we have tactical warp once again…” Looking at the display, Zhen’var looked pensive. “Sent once they knew our destination, do you think?” A gloved finger traced the vector line. “We have a fixed point to defend, and twelve hours to prepare to do so. Comms, begin preparing an IU burst to command with our current situation. I will review and edit before sending.”

“Understood, Captain.” Chief Bor’erj was at comms. “We won’t have an answer back for at least sixty hours because of how far out we are, Ma’am.”

Elia brought up a tactical plot. “They can’t run their fighters very far ahead because of short fuel supplies, Captain. We’ll have at least eleven hours of peace. Resting the crew might be ideal, but whatever Commander Poniatowska comes up with for recovering the  _Heermann_ may be an involved operation. And the Resistance Leader, Bea, wants to speak with you. Apparently Captain Reynolds is on the …  _Francesco de Trier._ ”

“Stand the crew down for what rest we can, let Engineering know of the deadline and attempt to rotate crew through so everyone gets at least some chance to recover. I will meet the Resistance leader in my ready room.” Zhen’var replied, having thought for several seconds. “We have our deadline and our goal, let us be about it.”

“All right, Captain. I’ll send her in.”

  
  
  
  


A few minutes later the young woman with long coloured bangs and short hair arrived in her browncoat, fringed with chainmaille sleeve-ends, the symbol of the old Independent Planets. She looked stiff-necked, perhaps hiding some nervousness.

“Sit, please.” Zhen’var had a steaming mug of chai on her desk already, as she looked up at the new arrival. “You wished to speak to me.”

Bea moved to sit. “Yes, Captain. First of all, my apologies for the failure of security that led to Jubal Early sneaking aboard my vessel; we screwed up, you paid the price. I would go further and say we’re amateurs, and it would be true.”

“Yet you are the ones who will need to lead this system forward, Miss, once we pass our current, admittedly, somewhat severe situation.” The Dilgar woman replied after a moment’s silence.

“We do have ships converging on this location ourselves. They include Government-trained naval personnel. I understand that the Government ships will arrive before they can however. But, Captain, with your interstellar drive now operational, could you transfer enough personnel from those ships, as well as my own, to bring your three prizes into the line? We know how to operate all of the systems. We could assist you in defending the hulk.” She had the youthful eagerness of a twenty-year old, ruthlessly smart and yet leading an incipient rebellion at an age much too young.

“It is possible, but it would also reveal that our faster-than-light drives are operational, eliminating the tactical advantage we would gain from surprise. I will strongly consider it, however.”

“Well, we could at least bring  _one_ of the ships operational with the people from my armed transport. It is some kind of extra firepower. This fleet you are facing is a very substantial part of the Alliance’s garrison in the outer planets, Captain. The only ships that will be left if it is defeated are the  _Tohoku_ -type police cruisers.”

Drumming gloved fingers on the desk, the other woman gave a single nod. “The ships are yours, Miss.”  _If we can use runabouts going to warp in the sensor shadow of ourselves and coming out in the shadow of the Resistance ships, that might work… I will have to inquire if a method can be found._

“Thank you, Captain. You will be of inestimable help to the freedom of the Independent Planets and the downfall of this regime,” she answered. “I will prepare my men immediately.”

“I shall keep you updated if I decide to retrieve additional crew from your incoming ships.”  _Now you’re truly into it, overthrowing **another** government._

“Thank you, Captain.” Bea rose, and tossed a salute. “Free we are, and free we will remain,” she said softly, as she departed.

  


Anna was long into her coffee, eyes bloodshot. “All right, that’s enough talking,” she said, looking around the table. “Fera’xero, Chief Héen, thank you for your input. Let’s rack and stack.”

She turned to the holographic projector and used her interface pointer to start drawing on the schematic of the  _Francesco de Trier_ and the  _Huáscar_ in position. “Lieutenant Ytash,” she gestured to the Alakin woman, “thinks we should use the industrial replicators to generate tow cable. Advantage? Force can be transmitted against the structure of the  _de Trier._ Disadvantage? Friction generated failure, enormous energy demands for matter replicators, may not finish in time.”

“Next, Fera’xero wants to just repair enough of the thrusters to get the  _Heermann_ airborne. Advantage: Certainty. Disadvantage: Time.” She took another pull of her coffee and glanced to the Quarian.

“Yes, it is a weakness,” the Quarian science officer agreed, “but,  _keelah._ ”

“Commander, I know where you’re going with this,” Arterus remarked.

“Yes I am,” Anna agreed, and plotted out the next option. “All right, number three and it’s what I favour. Chief Héen,” she glanced at the Tlingit woman, “is fairly experienced in these kinds of applications which don’t come up often in space. So, the advantage of kedging our own tractor beam is that it’s that it’s a matter of geometric simplicity, and it’s quick. Disadvantage: It’s never been done before. But what happens if it fails?”

“We could burn the tractor beams out, Commander,” Lieutenant Ytash, one of her engineering officers, reminded her. “We could also have the  _Heermann_ underway when it fails, leading to another collision or damage.”

“At very low speed, Ma’am,” Stasia answered, having been silent as she listened to the rundown. “And if she has enough velocity to escape the bay, then we can grab her again as she crosses the verge with another operational tractor beam. We have more than two projectors. Ma’am.”

“Am I clear on how this is going to work?” Violeta asked, grabbing her own interface for the sketch. “So we’d aim one of our forward tractor beams as close to the  _Heermann_ as we could, grabbing part of the bay wall just inside the verge, after using low-power phasers to cut the rest of the bay doors off that she crashed through. Then,” A click. Violeta raised her own coffee for a moment; the situation had overcome any preferences. “We activate an aft tractor beam on the stern and  _grab our own tractor beam,_ with the interaction between the beams bending the beam at an inflection point where the two meet, sweeping the first beam into the bay at an off-angle. We aim by varying the power between the two beams. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Stasia nodded vigorously. “A tractor beam is just a tensor field, and it obeys Newtonian geometric addition and subtraction of forces--all we need is two force vectors so that the resultant from their merger at an inflection point grabs the  _Heermann_ with a positive force, and we’ll be inboard hauling and running for open sea. Basically we have to make the  _Heermann_ move parallel to the  _Huáscar,_ that means that, say, we project one tractor beam at a 45-degree angle and then one at a 90-degree angle--call that ‘y’, as long as the forces balance we will cancel the ‘y’ components and have only ‘x’ force--straight aft from the inflection point.”

“...” Anna scratched her head, visualising the vectors. “So, we need the aft tractor to be on repulsion to bend the forward one in the correct direction, yes?”

Stasia looked at her sketchpad and frowned. “Yes, Commander. Look, I’ll be honest, I got the idea by thinking about how you dock a wet boat with a spring line.”

“Hah!” Anna laughed. “I think I’ve seen that done with a barge on the Irtysh. Yes. We’ll do it, if Lieutenant Arteria is confident that she can pull off the coordination from the helm.”

“Commander!” Violeta grinned. “Of course I can.” She reached for another breaded chicken tender, shaking at just how dramatically the unending alerts the  _Huáscar_ often found her in had disintegrated her diet. “Shall we bring it to the Captain?”

“Do we have consensus first?” Anna’s gray eyes made eye contact with each person at the table in turn, or eyeplate in the case of Fera’xero. “I want us all united. We only have time to try one strategy to salvage the  _Heermann._ ”

One by one, they assented.

  
  


It was Anna who went up at the head of them, to personally brief the Captain. It was a considerable group of officers that followed her, and Chief Héen. “So, Captain, we’ve come to an agreement about how to proceed.”

“Very well, Commander.” Zhen’var sat at her desk, datapads of reports piled neatly before her. “Is the risk calculated, and is it likely to succeed?”

“Yes, it is a calculated risk, and we favour it because it may be tried multiple times even if it fails the first time in the allotted time, whereas any of the other solutions are likely to result in our being unable to salve the  _Heermann_ before the enemy arrives in a single attempt, let alone trying multiple times. Chief Héen originated the proposal. It involves using one tractor beam on repulsion to bend another tractor beam to reach inside of the  _de Trier_ ’s bay. Varying the force of the two beams would very the angle to allow us to steer.”

“Very good..” She nodded to the Chief, as Zhen’var trusted her crew, and knew that these were the experts. “Proceed when ready, then. I have full faith and confidence in your collective judgement.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Anna answered. “We can make our first attempt now with your permission.”

“So granted, Commander. May you meet with success, even if I can only look on in confusion at the idea of tractoring a tractor beam.”

“Think of it as being like a sheer crane, Captain, just with all three parts formed by two tractor beams instead of one beam and two sets of ropes,” Anna replied wryly.

“I  _mostly_  understood that… very well. I hope it works. Chief Héen, I am going to need the runabout squadron head here, I am going to need to discuss a plan with them. I will not impose further on you with the salvage operation looming.”

“Major Tu’vert will be up momentarily, Captain,” she answered after briefly speaking into her omnitool, and then going to take one of the spare stations on the bridge. Violeta had already spelled one of her subordinate helmsmen and was starting to move the  _Huáscar_ into position.

“Thank you. I will leave you to it. Ops, Science, my ready room, please. I need to discuss a runabout operation. Commander Poniatowska, you have the conn.”

“I have the conn,” Anna repeated, as Elia and Fera’xero peeled off to follow Zhen’var. She moved to sit in the command chair of the  _Huáscar_ ’s bridge. Daria and Stasia linked their boards to start coordinating the tractor beam operation. The  _trust_ that Zhen’var put in her Polish Chief Engineer, and how casual it was, too, was  _intensely_ meaningful.

  
  
  


Elia and Fera’xero entered to stand before Zhen’var in her ready room. “Ops and Science, reporting as ordered…”

Zhen’var turned to sit, and return to her ever-present cup of chai. “Major Tu’vert should be up shortly. Make yourselves comfortable, Commanders.”

“Thank you. Commander Saumarez, could I impose upon you…?”

“Dextro fruit smoothie?”

“Please,” Fera’xero’s voice held only amusement at the casual use of telepathy.

Elia materialised it in the usual sealed bulb alongside her own cup of tea and then moved to sit alongside the Quarian with both.

“There is something very strange to be able to casually have a custom replicated meal while a hostile fleet is bearing down upon us. Fera’xero, you have a better understanding of the native sensor technology of this system by now?”

“Yes, I have been monitoring their performance,” he answered, sipping the smoothie through the attached self-sealing straw.

“Do they suffer from mass-shadowing, or require line-of-sight in resolving small contacts?” It was an idle-sounding question, but her entire nebulous plan required one or both of them to be ‘yes’.

“Yes, to both, at least in parts. Their sensors are also slower than light. The only risk is neutrino detection, which can pass through certain objectives, is fairly well refined. But the emission rate is very low and… A heavily armoured capital ship will block them.”

The door chimed. “Major Tu’vert, Flight Wing,” the computer introduced the Dilgar officer in its usual voice. Zhen’var’s last work-around to make it stop announcing people had been overridden and no longer worked on the new software update. So far nothing had fixed this.

There was only a slight twitch of her eye at the computer insisting on overriding her preferences. “Major Tu’vert, welcome. Make yourself comfortable and get what you’d like from the replicator.” She hadn’t met the Major aside from in passing before, and she took a moment to study her, a slightly darkish-brown haired Dilgar woman with green eyes who presented herself at attention before going to the replicator for some Ytar.

“Of course, Captain,” Tu’vert answered solicitiously.

“The Independents have ships converging on the area. They will arrive after the Government fleet on the way. They have offered to put prize crews aboard our captures and bring them into the line if we can retrieve the personnel. I wish to do so without alerting them that our warp drives are operational. That is where our runabouts come in, Major. If you go into warp drive while in our sensor shadow, and come out in the Independent ships’... I  _think_  that should work, and improve our odds in the looming battle for the fate of the system?

“They only have sublight sensors?” The Dilgar woman asked.

“That is correct,” Fera’xero responded. “The only concern would be neutrino emissions, and still operating at lightspeed.”

Tu’vert looked to Zhen’var. “Leaving, we can do. The problem is the coordination with the Independent ships would be functionally impossible. Each pilot would have to put themselves into place without coordinating with them, Ma’am.”

“Then the question is whether we can contact them to coordinate the matter, or whether it is even worth attempting to be covert at all.” Attempting to keep multi-universal technological schemata straight in her head was taxing the Captain mightily.

“The way one of their sublight pulse drives works, they have to de-acceleration to a relative stop to change direction before spinning up to high speed again,” Elia explained, “to avoid violating causality with their their mass-lower systems. So their courses are  _extremely_ predictable. I’d say the Runabouts can warp in and drop out on an identical course and velocity with low risk of collision.”

“If they do not open fire, we can use the runabouts as subspace anchors to let their commanders speak with them, and explain the situation, then?”

“They know we are their allies, ‘else they would not be coming,” Elia noted. “It’s at least a calculated risk there, too.

“I agree,” Tu’vert said after a moment.

“Then I wish to attempt it. Do you require anything else, Major?”

“No, we’ll get all of the runabouts for this, Captain, properly fitted. Is there anything else…?” As a Marine officer, her expression was almost serene. She was part of the new generation of Dilgar, but Dilgar both they were.

“Actually, there might be,” Elia interjected. “Those two prizes we took from the Reavers. They’re in horrible shape. We had to put Dilgar crews aboard because, well, with the charnel house, foetid atmosphere aboard, nobody else would have agreed to serve in the prize crew. We offered them to the Resistance but to be frank, I don’t think they want them, they’re in horrible shape, and they’d cause poor morale. And all the custom mods make them obvious as Reaver ships, so, bad propaganda image there.”

“Commander, what are you proposing..?” Tu’vert frowned.

“Fireships,” Elia said. “We pack them full of solar torpedoes, beam the crews off at the last minute, and use them inside the formation of this fleet coming against us. If we’re giving the Resistance the prizes we took from the Government Navy, this works out very well.”

“ _Very_  good thinking, Commander.”  _As long as nobody mentions the Blood Wind..._   “It should create real confusion in the Government fleet if we can get them close enough.”

“That will require a steady hand and the runabouts to stand by to beam them out, since the  _Huáscar_ will have her shields raised in action,” Tu’vert shook her head. “It  _can_ be done, it’s just a great matter of risk.”

“We should provide a backup plan, then, if the runabouts are hard pressed and unable to extricate them, can we extemporize a solution in time?”

“They could stand off far enough not to be involved in the battle,” Elia’s face scrunched in thought. “Or we could launch shuttles for that purpose.”

“The enemy uses a great many fighters, and we are already reduced… can we keep the shuttles covered in such an operation?” Zhen’var was looking dubious.

Elia picked up her cuppa and drank to centre her thoughts. “We only need a very small crew on each one, so we only need a single shuttle for each ship. It is a risk, but it also might win the battle for us, Captain. I volunteer to lead the detachment.”

“Your request is noted, but I do not believe I can spare my Operations officer during such a large-scale action, Commander Saumarez.” Zhen’var replied, wary at the idea.

“Then I would say of the other officers available that Leftenant tr’Rllaillieu would be best suited, Captain.” Elia looked levelly at Zhen’var, but refrained even from considering surface thoughts as she did.

A pensive look crossed the Dilgar Captain’s features, and she gave a slow shake of her head.  _Volunteers only._  “If you think it worth doing, the operation is yours, Commander. We will make do.”

“Thank you, Captain. Honour and Glory await us. I’ll ask for volunteers.” She rose, and nodded to Tu’vert and Fera’xero.

_ Be careful, El’sau, please… _

  
  
  
  


Anna Poniatowska sat in the command chair, eyes level, expression stiff. Truth be told, she had settled on the idea, but she wasn’t sure it was going to work. She just felt it had the highest probability of success out of a set of what were probably bad options.

“ _Huáscar_ Actual, this is Boatswain,” Goodenough’s voice repeated over comms. “We have cleared the bay.” Moving the casualties from the  _Heermann_ in case anything went wrong had been accomplished earlier by the  _Huáscar_ ’s transporters, but the simple task of clearing the bay of the  _Francesco de Trier_ still took time.

“ _Huáscar Actual_ acknowledges, Boatswain. We are commencing the attempt.” She didn’t say  _first_ out loud, by any measure. “Helm, begin precision station-keeping relative to the  _De Trier._ ”

“Precision station-keeping, aye.” This part was Violeta’s challenge. She had to use the thrusters and engines to take absolute care that the ship would not move relative to the massive Earthreign Dreadnought. The traditional aiming of the tractor beams would be impossible once they locked on, only the ship would steer the  _Heermann,_ and initially, any steering at all could be disastrous.

She took a breath and committed herself, locking in the programme. This required incredible patience and precision, skill at  _not_ moving. It was completely different from combat. The  _Huáscar_ was barely a twenty-seventh the mass of the  _de Trier,_ a third the length. One had been a roughly spire-shaped thrust block, one was a graceful starship. Now they were locked into place with each other only by the precision feedback of the sensors giving Violeta positional data.

“Ship is stable relative  _de Trier,_ ” Lieutenant Belzac, the Ops officer on watch now, reported, his plumage rustling as he looked to Anna. “Commander, we’re in the clear.”

“Leftenant Seldayiv,” Anna’s fingers gritted against the granite of the command chair’s arms, “Get us the  _Heermann,_ please.” She immediately brought up the power routing monitors on the interface of the command chair to observe supply to the tractor beams. The ship was all-nominal and nothing should be an issue, but she wished to leave nothing to chance.

Daria flexed her ears and flashed a grin to Stasia, who flashed her a thumbs-up in return. “Bringing up tractor No.3…”

The  _Huáscar_ shuddered gently as the tractor beam latched onto the much larger ship, the  _de Trier._ Daria looked through her tactical display as the centre of the tractor beam crept along the inner docking bay approach, basically a giant divet in the side of the Dreadnought, continuing to adjust it toward the target, which had been put on the hull of the dreadnought by a maintenance drone that Anna had sent over from the  _Huáscar,_ using actual paint.

“Thrust angle at forty-one, forty-two…” Violeta called off the degrees angle, adjusting the ship’s station-keeping steadily as the force on the  _Huáscar,_ even at just ten percent power on the tractor beam, altered through the continual motion. She couldn’t let the ship be jostled even a centimetre by it.

There was no room for the normal computer control. They were just using their nominal target at the moment, the  _de Trier,_ as a reference point. Daria was working to align the tractor beam with a spray-painted mark, using a tiny 10% load as a reference feedback.

Stasia’s fingers rested on her own board, waiting for the mark, watching with a baited breath. The coffee had come before this one, even if in reality it didn’t make if your hands shook, it felt like it would.

“On target,” Daria said emphatically. The tractor beam centre was locked onto the spray-painted mark.

Violeta made the final station-keeping adjustments. “We are zero-zero relative, Chief.”

“Bringing up Tractor No.5,” Stasia reported with a gentle shake of her head.  _Here goes nothin’._ And it had been her idea, too… She pointed at the indicator “Confirm repulsion.” To set it to attract would be to ruin everything by a single setting.

There was a second shudder in the hull. “Twelve percent… Fourteen… Sixteen-five… Sixteen six-six…” Stasia called off, matching sines and cosines. And then… She pointed again, as something to do with the massive grin on her face. “Forward tractor beam angle is due aft.”

Commander Goodenough’s voice echoed over the comms. “ _Huáscar_ Actual, Boatswain here. The  _Heermann_ is straining against the deck! You’ve got a lock.”

Anna slapped her comm on. “Laser level on the bridge, please.” The  _Heermann_ was precariously balanced at a twenty-degree angle on one of her shattered warp drives and the other intact one. Only by a report from Goodenough’s crew could she know for sure if the beam was currently pushing the  _Heermann_ down toward the  _de Trier_ ’s hangar deck or upwards.

“Up four centimetres, Commander,” Goodenough answered.

“Thank you!” Anna frantically referenced the table she had had the computer prepare. “Helm, Z-positive two metres relative.”

“Z-positive two metres relative, aye,” Violeta restrained herself from shaking her head. She was creeping a starship more than a kilometre long up by a mere  _two metres_ relative to the massive bulk of the  _de Trier._ The thrusters were continuously burning now, mostly counteracting each other to hold her steady but letting her alter pinpoint position on the fly. The ship’s sensors were continuously, on high energy pingbacks, referencing her position to the  _de Trier_ with millimetric position, making the  _Huáscar_ into a futuristic equivalent to a drill-rig ship. Stasia had helped her find the programs for that; Violeta had modified them to work with the  _Huáscar_ ’s controls software.

“ _Huáscar_ Actual, Boatswain.  _Heermann_ ’s moving forward at about two centimeters per second. You have a good lock!”

The Attacker was now being influenced by the tractor beam whose angle had been modified by the formation of a ‘virtual crane’ by the interlocking beams. The final adjustment had served to pull the  _Heermann_ up just enough to overcome the force of the  _de Trier_ ’s artificial gravity holding her to the deck. Once enough of the surface of the ship’s nacelles had been pulled up by the thrust of the beam, then the static friction was overcome and she was now sliding along down the deck. With the beam on target, she had started to pull forward toward the open bay, where the remnants of the vacuum doors had been cleared away by charges set by the teams on the  _de Trier._

Now, Violeta was sweating rivets. She had to keep the  _Huáscar_ **perfectly** still, because any movement of the cruiser would be magnified through the arm of the tractor beams and whip the  _Heermann_ against the deck of the  _de Trier._

She held steady until the moment the  _Heermann_ began to clear the plane of the hangar. At that point, the gravity of the  _de Trier_ no longer influenced part of the mass of the  _Heermann_ and the ship began to buck upwards. When she bucked up, in theory, the contact point of the tractor beam would go down and this would compensate. And it did… Too far. The  _Heermann_ bucked up, and then bucked  _down._

_ Up four metres,  _ she guessed on raw instinct and the relative forces involved, and sharply activated the necessary thrusters. The  _Huáscar_ notably punched her crew down against the inertial compensation in a sharp kind of shock as the thrusters then kicked on the dorsal surface to keep her from rising too far. Down at the end of the two tractor beams, it had the desired result; the  _Heermann_ jerked upwards again. Now, though, she was clearing the plane of the hangar, and she jerked upwards and  _kept going_ up.

“ _Huáscar_ Actual, she’s lost the beam and out of control!” Goodenough’s voice strained with urgency for his ship. Violeta could already feel it, groaning in frustration. Daria let out a  _screech_. But in a real sense she had already  _done it._ Already succeeded. The  _Heermann_ was well out of the plane of the bay.

“On it!” Stasia shouted, she didn’t even bother to adjust the settings on Tractor Five, she brought up Tractor Six and locked it on now--and from that angle right aft, conventionally.

“Thank you, Chief,” Daria sighed and sank in her seat. “Merciful Goddess of Light..”

“Boatswain, report!” Anna called out.

“ _Heermann_ is under control but you’ve got a risk of an aft collision with the verge of the bay,  _Huáscar_ Actual!”

“Ahead one-gee on thrusters!” Stasia called out. She had no right to give an order, but she needed it right now.

“One-gee aye!” Violeta snapped anyway. It  _made sense._ With the thrusters coming up, the  _Heermann_ ’s stern gently missed the  _de Trier_ by six metres clearance.

“ _Huáscar_ Actual, you’ve done it! She’s rolling free and clear!” Goodenough’s excited voice was near to shouting as the  _Heermann,_ free and clear, was now being pulled back into position aft to be lined up with her dock aboard the  _Huáscar_. They had done it.  _They had done it!_

_ “Santy-anna gained the day!”  _ Elia’s voice cut from the back of the bridge.

Violeta and Daria shook looks behind them to realise that Zhen’var and Elia and Fera’xero had all come out of the Ready Room and were  _watching them._ They blanched in a bit of shock.

_ Oh god, nerves would have been too much if I’d known!  _ Violeta thought.

But Stasia just laughed and caught the second line. “ _Away, Santy-anna!_ ”

_ “And Santyanna gained the day…” _

“... _All across the plains of Mexico!”_

The days of stress, facing an immense nation and fighting them all by themselves, without relief, without communication, weeks from support, had finally come down to this in their little triumph. Elia raised her fist into the air. “ _He gain'd the day at Molly-Del-Rey_!”

And this time Zhen’var joined Stasia in answering the call. “ _Away Santyanna_!”

Fera’xero came from a long Quarian ship tradition and he didn’t know the lyrics of the song, but he knew the ship’s cheer, and raised his own fist.  _“Viva Huáscar_!” The song stopped then, there was no more need for it, for the rest of the bridge crew joined in with him.

  
_“Viva Huáscar!”_ Win or lose the  _Heermann_ was out of the fight, she wouldn’t be repaired in time to help against the Government fleet, but the moral victory of her successful salvage had raised everyone’s spirits. They were in, an innovating, hard-working  _team,_ with mutual responsibility for their success. And their voices made the call and held their pride because of it. They would face the foe ‘with united strength’.

 


	4. Act 4

#  Act 4

  
  


Deep in the hull of the  _ Francesco de Trier,  _ Abebech strummed her guitar. The crew of the  _ Serenity  _ and a few of her own officers sat around, listening and eating rations. Around them, the tattered remnants of what had been the furnishings hung. This was the officer’s mess, but they set on the disintegrating remnants of the cushions, a table-cloth that had turned to dust. The electronics and the immense armours, though, remained. 

“ _ The night of fire is yet to come _ _   
_ _ The tyrant's shadow down the years _ _   
_ _ demands we kneel, or take the gun _ _   
_ __ And go shed blood instead of our tears”

Tapping sharply her boot on the deck, she carried, haunting, through each stanza until she reached the fourth. Then her voice took a particular vicious cant, and she tore the words like they were bullets.

“ _ The starry banner that did fly _ _   
_ _ O'er freedom's bloodied barricades _ _   
_ _ Now flaps and fades in foreign skies _ _   
_ __ O'er palaces that empire made”

“It’s hard to explain the feeling of someone who, in revolutionary ardour, supported a cause, now to find it a great and sprawling  _ Empire,  _ which clutches in the claws of the Eagle of Glory, the old symbols of simple and humble revolutionary purity and liberty,” she explained when she softly finished, looking sympathetically to Inara, as if she had teased out her own complicated feelings toward the Union of Allied Planets. 

“That’s the story of this ship, too,” River interjected softly. “Once they were fighters for liberty, who created a new kind of society, but in triumph and victory they became totalitarian, corrupt, decadent.”

“And we’ve repeated it?” Inara sighed, not really a question, but… 

Mal smiled and reached an arm reassuringly for her. “Reckon that story is about as old as history itself. What happened to the Terran Reich, Commander Imra?”

Abebech strummed a few chords and caught a different song, a very different song, on acoustics. She cut the lyrics with a kind of biting sarcasm and each syllable seemed to convey emotional bitterness. 

“ _ We've enslaved the world _ _   
_ _ We have slaughtered, we've burned _ _   
_ _ All in the name of our faith _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Only a fool would expect _ _   
_ _ Others to settle for anything less _ _   
_ _ The tide is about to turn _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The sea has pulled away _ _   
_ _ Like small children we play _ _   
_ _ What is this? _ _   
_ _ Come take a look at all these fish! _ _   
_ _   
_ _ As long as you spend _ _   
_ _ There is more for you to lend _ _   
_ __ Someone always saves us in the end ”

She stopped abruptly and snatched her guitar to the side, with a ruthless, sharp look on her face. Some of them were distracted with their food, some appreciated the music more than the story. But Mal listened, and Simon was almost entranced, Inara impressed with the true story-telling skill the woman showed. “Gotterdamerung, that’s what happened. The people of S0T5 give it its own name, of course, because it was so great that even calling it Gotterdamerung would be insufficient. Nothing on Old Earth can compare. They call it the  _ Reignfall.”  _

“Since Terran Reich means  _ Earth Reign  _ in proper language,” Simon murmured. 

“You heard her say that, brother!” River teased. 

Abebech smiled faintly, the spell broken. “Our--Espers, I mean--oldest enemy did us in. A malign force that the war against tore apart the very fabric of reality around Earth. Old Earth was destroyed more thoroughly than Earth-that-Was, and the Forgeworlds around it as well. They call it the Fracture, now. People like River and I can pass thoughts from generation to generation. I have some of that legacy in me as a result. That’s what’s let me control this ship. And now it’s what will let River control the ship.”

“ _ What?”  _ Zoe started first. 

“ _ Wait, what?!”  _ Jayne dropped his plate. “You tellin’ me you gave ‘er the command codes for this monster? Woman, you might be a fine singer but you ain’t got any--” Jayne’s words cut off abruptly in mid sentence, his eyes locked wide open.

“Don’t go started gettin’ into a fight,” Mal said, slowly standing. “What’d you do to Jayne?” 

“I am too old to have my judgement questioned by patronizing men doing so on grounds without value,” Abebech answered levelly. River was giggling to her side. 

“River,” Zoe said a bit reproachfully, “You shouldn’t laugh…”

“Jayne doesn’t know what to do when a woman is bigger and stronger than he is,” River answered levelly, though she stopped giggling. Her expression was a bit hurt. “Why are you afraid of me with the  _ de Trier _ ?”

Abebech raised her hand and released Jayne. “River isn’t the only one who can kill you with her mind,” she explained offhandedly.

“You  _ got that outta my head, didn’t you!?”  _

“Yes,” Abebech replied simply, and rose. “Captain Reynolds, walk with me.” She started down one of the corridors. 

Mal paused and looked over his crew. “All right now, don’t start anything while I’m gone.”

“I’ll keep ‘em honest, Sir,” Zoe replied. 

Down the corridor, dimly glowing lights, Abebech walked with her hands behind her back. “Only a telepath can control this ship, Captain Reynolds. There is only one telepath who reliably stands against the Union of Allied Planets.”

“River. So you’re saying it’s a matter of us not having a choice--wait, you think this ship can  _ fight,  _ Commander?”

“Yes, we’re now up to seven turbolasers and four neutron cannon operational,” Abebech replied calmly. “One engine on-line at half power. I verified it through a cybernetic interface. I am very serious about no non-telepath being able to control this ship. The control systems recognise encrypted  _ thoughts, _ Captain. Yes, you can encrypt thoughts. I am able to control the ship because I possess those thoughts. So, I copied them to River.”

“She…”

“Is far more stable now than she has ever been before, and she will continue to improve,” Abebech answered. “I think that you can plainly see the advantages of the  _ Francesco de Trier  _ as a mobile base.” 

“I can,” Mal agreed, looking down the corridor, before he turned back sharply to Abebech. “And you’re just givin’ us the ship?” 

“The Captain wants to help your rebellion, this is the best way to do it. It is an archaeological treasure… But it is also a fighting warship, whose crew died alone and far from home, trying to accomplish something I have yet to piece together. When they did, they left behind a genetic legacy--by which I mean the Alliance took samples of their DNA from their corpses and used those to create their telepaths. Part of that legacy, Captain Reynolds, is River. I am honouring the Esper legacy that is the Terran Reich by giving her this ship. If you think about it that way, as a point in fact, I have already matched her genes to the ship’s officer list. Her name was Teresa Kaminrokoljas, the ship’s Fire Control Officer. One more crime of the Alliance, to take the dead and make them have children when three thousand years gone.”

“..And her parents? I mean, her and Simon’s?”

“Oh, she was gestated naturally, and she has genetic material from the Tams. Simon is her brother, just not her full brother. Even reproduction is controlled for the elite of the inner planets, Captain. You know that, at least intellectually. So the State usurps even the bond of mother and child.” She walked on, hands folded behind her back still, head down as she talked, but never missing a step.

“How do you know this all?” Mal’s eyes couldn’t help but narrow. The succinct revelations were delivered without doubt. 

“The ship’s computers recognise her genetic material, and I can interface with the ship. As River must, to command her.” 

“Does she know that?” Mal leaned in, hotly. “Does she know that? It sounds to me like you’re turning her into a weapon yourself. Yes, this ship could let us win. Could overthrow the Alliance! Sure. But you don’t seem to be much different than them, putting her right back into it. Putting things in her head.” 

Abebech was unruffled. “It’s her decision, not your’s, Captain Reynolds. And you’re far more concerned about her stability than her self-determination. To you, part of that fear is that you might as well have crowned a Queen for the power the  _ Francesco de Trier  _ represents.”

He faced her levelly, thinking over the words. He didn’t want to make haste in this. It was his fate, the fate of his crew, and River’s most of all. “Why d’you wear those shades all the time? I don’t much like making such a big decision when I can’t look somebody in the eye.” 

Abebech paused for a moment, sniffed, and shook her head. “Your choice,” she answered in a voice that was almost a sinuous whisper, and took her glasses off. 

Mal started, his hand going for his pistol, before he forced it to slowly relax. He had seen what Abebech could do. There was no point. He didn’t even want to. Despite how unsettling the red eyes were, the colour of blood exactly, with pupils so dialated they resembled shoe buttons.  _ Damned  _ unsettling. Suddenly the reason for Abebech’s glasses was obvious. There were planets he knew where she’d be hung as a devil. 

Still, now he could see her eyes. Their alienness made it difficult to judge them as he had wanted to, but in this case, it was actually the gesture that mattered. “My apologies,” Mal said after a leaden moment. 

Abebech almost seemed to laugh for a moment, dispelling the leaden feeling in the air at the vision of her eyes. Then she just shook her head. “Apology accepted, Captain Reynolds. You are looking out for the girl, you do this with her best interests at heart. But your concerns are misplaced. She is as ready for this as anyone can be.”

“Can anyone be ready for this kind of responsibility?” He shot back, but it was with none of the rancour from before. He watched as Abebech turned and began to walk back. 

“If nobody is ready, then an unready person must step to the fore,” she countered, slipping her glasses back on. 

“You need to talk to Simon,” he said, sharply, as they returned. “He needs to know.” 

“Yes, he does, Captain Reynolds. But River and I will tell him together.” 

  
  
  
  
  


“Come on, Simon, we need to go with Commander Imra now,” River was insisting, on her feet and looking anxious. 

“Mei-mei, she isn’t even back yet with Mal…” Simon trailed off as the two returned.  _ Of course.  _ “Commander Imra,” he greeted her. “River says she wants to talk, just the three of us?” A glance to Mal.

“Reckon she does, from our conversation,” Mal explained and stepped to the side. 

“That’s so. If you’d follow me?” She almost seemed relaxed, now.

“Oh, let me,” River smiled, and chose one of the corridors. 

“Getting familiar with the ship?” Simon asked as they both followed her. 

“I should,” River answered. “It’s going to be our home, Simon.” 

“Not  _ Serenity?”  _

“ _ Serenity  _ is a good ship and I love piloting her,” River answered, “but she’s not a base for an insurrection against the Alliance.  _ Francesco de Trier  _ is. We have to bring down the Alliance, and we have to have a base for that. The  _ Francesco de Trier  _ can serve.” She turned back to face them as she walked. 

“Brother, I was created to interface with this ship.”

“You were  _ born,  _ to our parents, Mei-mei, nobody created you to do  _ anything  _ except what you want.”

“Not true,” she replied. “Abebech explained it, because the sensors of the ship can tell who I am. I was modified when I was an embryo; when mom and dad were having genetic testing done. Part of the genome recovered from the mummy of one of this ship’s officers was inserted in me. That’s where my Esper potential comes from.”

“Woah… Mei-mei, are you sure about this?” But Simon was paling, and Abebech looked sharply. 

“You know she’s right, don’t you.”

“...River’s baseline alleles don’t match the Tam family in several key ways,” Simon answered. “I mean, biologically we’re recognisable as siblings…”

“Because we are, silly,” River smiled. “Just because there’s a bit of a family named Kaminrokoljas I don’t know anything about yet in me doesn’t change that. Well, more than a bit. But we’re still siblings.” She reached out and hugged Simon. < _ And that’s not going to change.> _

“So what’s going to happen?” Simon asked softly. 

“Nothing,” River smiled brilliantly, and an access screen on the wall activated and data began to flow in New Franconian as different sectors of the ship were highlighted with status reports. “Abebech didn’t account for one thing. I’ve activated the telepathic interface network. I don’t  _ need  _ a jack.” She looked proud of herself that she’d found something even Abebech hadn’t prepared her for the ship. 

Abebech froze and then smiled tightly. “So this was one of the ships fitted with the interfaces. Now I begin to understand.” Her voice was laced with a kind of tension that was almost malicious. 

“Commander?” The  _ way  _ she had said that was deeply ominous. Simon started, and River frowned. 

Abebech turned a corner, opening a hatch to a room beyond. It was a briefing chamber, recognisable, human. Hands behind her back, she turned to pace at the front. “I had intended to destroy those units before departing.”

< _ Why would you make it harder for me?> _ River asked, her mind coming across as confused. A bit aggrieved. They were  _ incredible.  _

“Destroy the telepathic interfaces? I don’t understand…” Simon shook his head. “If it spares River a surgery, what’s the motivation for that?” 

“The technology is the basis of a kind of science, which interacts with higher universes through which telepathy is but a tiny manifestation,” Abebech replied, her head lowered, sharply in thought. “This science describes a kind of non-Euclidean reality, constrained and defined by mathematical forms. This reality underlies the entire Cosmos, by which I mean that thing people popularly call the Multiverse. It is also the basis of the soul, the pure essence of thought of the living--if you will, a realisation of the Platonic state of Ideal Forms.”

“You mean when River is reading someone’s mind…”

“No, she isn’t quite directly reading their soul. But it’s  _ possible  _ to. Psi-Corps having developed the so-called ‘necroscan’ is teasing around the edges of the possible. You can  _ very much  _ read someone’s mind after they’re dead. I’ve done it.” 

“And so this technology could lead to an understanding of the manipulation and control of energy in this other reality of the Cosmos?” River was  _ smart,  _ nobody doubted that...

“Only reality,” Abebech corrected gently. “Everything else is false--or so the ancient race which developed the technology first said. They gave it a succinct name--they called this other dimension ‘The Real World’. However, it’s more commonly called  _ The Hidden World  _ by those who discover it.”

“And we shouldn’t use it because?” Simon asked now. “It would be revolutionary to our understanding of the Cosmos.”

“It would be,” Abebech chuckled darkly and paused in the circuit of her pacing. “Of course, I only briefly interacted with the survivors of a civilisation that discovered this power and they were some of the most evil beings to ever exist. I do not intend to see their civilisation reborn. And, of course, the technology is dangerous for other reasons, too. It is inextricably linked to the function in this universe of that inextricable other  _ Power,  _ the entities of madness and despair which seek the elimination of all life in this Cosmos.”

“The ones that destroyed the Terran Reich,” Simon said flatly, gesturing around the room.

“Precisely.” A pause. “However, the hour is short, and I could use an Executive Officer as I fight the  _ Francesco de Trier.  _ For now, let us put this aside. She can indeed use the interfaces to control the ship. Frigate Captain?” 

River’s head jerked up.

“Let us get you fitted for a uniform. They would be upset if I violated Geneva.” Abebech was smiling. “There should be a working autotailor  _ somewhere. _ Your second mother would be so proud…”

As they followed Abebech, the Tams exchanged a sharp glance. River couldn’t see past the ornate defences that belied Abebech’s raw power, but she knew there was something much deeper going on.

  
  
  
  
  


Inside the Pilots Ready Room, which was more of a combined private mess and briefing room, the mood was sombre and light all at once. They were sitting with steaming mugs, no time for liquor for wakes or celebrations. The  _ Huáscar _ ’s wing had just created eight aces in a day--the technological disparity was so bad it was scarcely fair. Artesia, who already had kills, had just qualified for the Blue Max technically. 

Jozef Tribecki was laughing about that. “The Reich gives it to you after twenty-one kills if you’re one of their pilots. It was revived during the Far East War. They thought they were good enough to set that high of a bar, but we’ve levelled them tonight.”

Lar’shan had  _ also  _ crossed that bar, but he said nothing about it. He had gone around talking to each of his pilots. Now gathered together, all except the casualties, their thinned ranks were heavy on his mind. “We’ll have the replacement fighters ready in another hour for acceptance inspections,” he finally noted to the group. “We have enough able-bodied pilots who ejected to crew them all, with some to spare. I want self-selection first. Is there anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable going out again this soon?”

Nobody raised a hand. 

“All right, here’s the plan.” Lar’shan got up in his Marine service uniform green suit, eyes around food and tea and coffee and ytar and a dozen other things tracking with him. Half the fighter wing was Marine fighter squadrons and in honour of that his lead flight was composed of both Navy and Marine fliers. The Navy fliers were in the Aviation Forces uniform of solid light blue with a lapel-clasp and white trim which had been introduced due to the plethora of colours of in the standard Alliance uniforms being impossible to tell apart for some species--assuming that they weren’t still in flight suits, which they were in a few cases. This allowed a simplification of the colour scheme on the regular uniforms to guarantee all species in the Alliance could actually tell them apart. 

“How are we going to finish selecting the pilots?” Marissa Davies, a dark-skinned Marine pilot asked from the back.

“I’m getting to that, Leftenant,” Lar’shan answered. “We need to understand the tactical picture first. We’re facing a fleet of fifty-six ships,” he began, bringing up the holo-projector image of the fleet, now de-accelerating in its sublight approach toward the  _ Francesco de Trier.  _

“So, we’ve got the full Outer Planets Fleet of the Union of Allied Planets coming for us, minus the  _ Tohoku- _ class ships unsuited for heavy combat. At close range their heavy EMP weapons can disable the  _ Huáscar,  _ otherwise they don’t have the firepower to take our home out. So they have to get their assault forces into point-blank range, the corvettes, gunboats and fighter-bombers armed with the EMP pulse charges, to have a chance to win.” 

“Our objective, on the other hand, is to defend the  _ Francesco de Trier  _ at all costs. To minimise the risk to the  _ Huáscar,  _ Captain Zhen’var intends to orbit the  _ de Trier  _ at high impulse. She will interdict the enemy fleet at long-range, circling and providing continuous precision fires to systematically cripple their heaviest ships.”

“And our function, Major?” Artesia asked, professional in the moment, voice sharp and clipped. 

“Stay in close to the  _ De Trier.  _ We use her as manoeuvring terrain from which to drag the enemy fighters down. Most of the hull is dead and can take damage from their autocannon indefinitely. So we keep pushing them in close because they have to board her to accomplish their objectives. We make that boarding operation impossible. Then, we get to the denouement…”

His broad eyes were serious. “The captured Union ships are being given crews of Resistance personnel, experienced in their operation. They will approach from the far side of the  _ de Trier,  _ and with the support of her batteries, they will escort in the two captured Reaver ships. These are being loaded with solar torpedoes. We need volunteers; runabouts standing by, hidden inside the  _ de Trier _ ’s bays, will allow the crews of the fire-ships to escape. A flying wedge of the operational Resistance ships will cut through the enemy formation, and trailing behind them, the fire-ships will be detonated. With the  _ de Trier _ ’s batteries continuing to engage, the  _ Huáscar  _ will then approach to finish the enemy off. I will allow volunteers for the crews of the fire-ships up to the number of spare, healthy pilots we have. One will be commanded by Lieutenant Commander Saumarez and one will be commanded by Lieutenant Arterus tr’Rllaillieu.”

“Since you don’t have a fighter or bomber to fly, who will step forward for this duty?” Lar’shan swept his eyes over his pilots, meeting each set in turn. 

“Dangerous duty under Commander Saumarez and Lieutenant tr’Rllaillieu?” Artesia stood up. She had a fighter, but she stood up anyway. “Count me in, Major.” 

There was a momentary pause in the ranks, and then there was the rustling of chairs as people started to stand. People were slapping each other on the back and laughing, if nervously. Artesia grinned cockily and planted her arms on her hips, one of the other pilots slapping her back from behind. “Well, Sir, looks like you’re gonna have to make assignments instead. We’re all in.” 

Everyone was standing up. 

  
  
  
  
  


After the assignments had been made and he had dismissed everyone to get their last bit of shut-eye, except for those deploying to the fireships, Lar’shan fell in with Lieutenant de Más, who had been heading up to Café Varna to get a snack before sleeping. She was still going to be flying. 

“Leftenant, I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t assign you to one of the fire-ships,” Lar’shan said as he stepped with her into the turbolift, and her eyes jerked up. 

“No, certainly not, Major. It was done more for the camaraderie than anything else, though I would have taken the assignment as any other,” she answered, keying in her destination. “Are you going to get something to eat, too?” 

“I believe so,” he answered. “That was the talent of a natural leader, Leftenant.” 

Artesia pursed her hands on her hips again. “Maybe. It just seemed the right thing to do at the time. Why did you decide to keep my assignment?”

“To put it plainly, Leftenant, you are my best pilot,” he answered honestly. “We are almost wasted in the same flight. I will put you in as a replacement flight leader for Leftenant Fallon,” he grimaced, for Fallon was one of the slain, “in SC-4, Beta flight. That should give you a more target rich environment to operate in, since they were the lowest performers during the last engagement.” 

“I am to stiffen them, you mean,” Artesia answered. 

“Well, frankly, that’s quite so. We are going to be in a very hard fight. Our technological superiority is great, but we will be facing odds worthy of Ter’shar at Ofelka.”

“I’m not familiar with the reference, but I’ve fought these odds before, so it isn’t necessary,” Artesia replied, pressing her hands down against the hand-rail. “To be honest, it feels a bit like murder, Major. Like what Zeon was doing to the Federal Navy before the widespread introduction of Federal Mobile Suits. We completely outgun them.”

“It does,” Lar’shan agreed as the doors opened and he strode out with Artesia at his side, to his left and a half step behind. “But if it was perfectly honourable, they would face us one to one, not in waves outnumbering us six to one. In that case, all you can really do is keep your comrades safe. That is a kind of honour, too. My father would have been more rigid about it, perhaps, but I don’t like to write those letters. There will already be enough, and against these odds, I know that there will also be more.” 

“Agreed.” Artesia shook her head gently. “We will face them, and the rest will come what may.” 

Inside, Elia was drinking tea and eating some kebabs across from Arterus, who was drinking khavas and enjoying a similiar repaste. Lar’shan grinned. “Commander, Leftenant. I admit I was expecting you to be readying for your departure.”

“One more good meal first,” Elia answered. “I thought you’d be asleep, Major, Leftenant.”  

“A snack before bed,” Artesia answered.

“Well, have a seat. Shaping up to be a bloody business tomorrow,” she tapped her watch. “Well, seven and a half hours, close enough.” 

“And you asked for the heart of it,” Lar’shan offered after sitting. “Seven of my pilots without fighters have volunteered, by the way.”

“Information already showed up on our omnitools, thank you, Major,” Arterus answered, looking a bit pensive if Artesia could read Rihannsu facial expressions at all. She turned away briefly to order from Alexandra. 

“Quite so,” Elia agreed. “As for being in the heart of it, well, if not us, then whom? It’s impressive how much capability Abebech has restored on the  _ de Trier,  _ and I don’t want to see that ship destroyed. It’s an archaeological marvel of a lost Empire of Telepaths, that’s the way I see it. Of course, we’re about to thrust it into battle, but even so…”

“An archaeological marvel, ma’am, but is it actually worth holding our position for?” Artesia tilted back in her chair, legs sharply crossed. 

Elia regarded her for a moment. “I do think the only chance to have secrets of the Earthreign revealed might be worth a few deaths, actually, which I suppose is part of why I made sure to volunteer for the most dangerous post. They won’t call me a hypocrite, you know, Leftenant. But as a practical matter, the ship had to get here somehow or another, and I’ve heard rumours about what they’ve found aboard.” 

“ _ Oh… _ ”

  
  
  
  
  
  


Will Atreiad had taken a nap after the end of the action, and then been awakened by a message from Fera’xero. They needed to coordinate an operation on the  _ Francesco de Trier.  _ Five minutes later, he met up with Lieutenant Ter’maro from Engineering, the Dilgar crisply leading a squad of twelve. 

“Do you have any idea what’s going on, Sir?” The Dilgar man was a dun brown, short Rohrican who looked up with wide-blinking blue eyes at Will. “We haven’t even received a briefing.” 

“Neither have I, actually.”

“If they’re not telling you, Sir…” Ter’maro shook his head and growled. “Well, this is going to be interesting, Sir. Not looking forward to being off the ship and on that hulk. I hope we manage to get back before we’re engaged.”

“We should. I couldn’t imagine anything else being accepted,” Will answered, shaking his head. This was truly weird. “All right. Stand by to transport.” he stepped up onto the pad and the team followed him. 

A moment later in the flash of white light of the Darglan-style transporters, they stood before what looked like the engineering spaces of the  _ Francesco de Trier.  _

Will looked around. The coincidences had been maddening to him, in the little time he had had to think. This  _ was  _ Cyrannus, but it had been altered by an enormously sophisticated power.  _ The Earthreign?  _ The Fracture was proof of some kind of hideous, reality-altering cataclysm. Artificial suns and natural stars thrown about seemed minor in comparison. 

_ Three thousand years… Right on time.  _ The Reignfall and the out-migration of his ancestors had happened around the same time. The out-migration had happened here around the same time, too, but in a radically different universe with very different results. 

It had once been a break room, and on the mouldering wall was a bit of an invocation, in New Franconian. He used his omnitool to translate it.  _ That the work of our ancestors not be undone.  _

He shook his head. Will kept looking for signs of consanguinity between the people of this system and his own, but they were madly elusive. He desperately wanted to tour the Inner Worlds and see what they were like, irrevocably altered thousands of years before and yet several of them similar to his own homeworlds, to see if their cultures indeed converged. 

But on this ship he would not find signs like that. It was a different kind of monument, one devoted to the Earthreign and still an enigma as it sat before them, even now. 

Ter’maro brushed his shoulder and Will jerked. “Sir, Commander Fera’xero is here.”

“Ah. Commander.” He looked up. 

“Commander, Sir,” Fera’xero answered. “This way with your team, please. Though,  _ keelah,  _ the ship  _ is  _ quite astonishing.” 

“A riddle wrapped in an enigma, more like.” Will shook his head. “What was the Earthreign  _ doing  _ here? In another universe?” 

“I don’t know, Commander. But I have discovered how they got here.” The Quarian came to a stop in another engineering chamber, and slowly Will’s face lost all expression. 

“Oh Gods this is Big. This is real big. I see why you brought me now.” Will stared, sheepishly wide-eyed, at what in retrospect was obvious. Stupidly, blindingly obvious. The ship had to have gotten here  _ somehow.  _

It had gotten here under its own power. Will and Fera’xero were looking at a Darglan Interuniversal Drive. “That’s not even a  _ copy,  _ is it?” Will finally managed to ask. 

“Correct, Commander. It’s an original, built by the Darglan. We’ve already called for a cargo shuttle to bring it back to the  _ Huáscar,  _ I needed the help of a team and a senior officer to supervise security and secrecy to finish it and quickly.” 

“Got it,” Will acknowledged, shaking his head closely. “Of course they had an Interuniversal Drive on board…. Gods, what in Hades were the  _ Darglan  _ doing associating with the  _ Earthreign _ ?”

“Unknown, Commander…” Fera’xero held his left hand up. “However, consider this observation: The Reignfall in standard chronology of consensus historians was three thousand years ago, ending in the Fracture. The scouring of your Earth was three thousand years ago. The Gersallian legend of the Darkness War of Swenya--is dated to three thousand years ago. The end of Darglan interuniversal civilisation -- was three thousand years ago. And so here we have a ship of the Earthreign, from the period of the Reignfall, with a Darglan interuniversal drive aboard. A rational observer could conclude that all of the events are fundamentally linked.”

Will felt a slowly spreading chill in his body. It was a peculiar feeling, like he had discovered something very, very wrong. He remembered the  _ Aurora _ ’s classified mission the crew of the  _ Heermann  _ had not-quite talked about from the year before, that had led to extremely heavily damage. He remembered strange goings-on at the Citadel. “I feel like I’ve come across a secret history of the universe, Fera’xero.”

“Ancestors protect us, but we might have, Commander.” He stepped closer to the drive. “Let’s get started.” 

Will was about to step in with him when a chime sounded in the engineering spaces. One of the walls glowed and then resolved into a massive, three-dimensionalised image. Standing in it was a trim, black-haired young woman wearing a white uniform jacket with a black and gold striped waist-belt, black collar with gold rank tabs, gold epaulettes and aiguillette, black and gold cuff-stripes over black cuffs--the classic ‘Brandenburger’ style the Nazis had--and gold cufflinks and, on the right breast, a prominent black eagle, not the Nazi one but older, more archaic, clutching lightning bolts and an olive branch in its claws with stylised rockets crossed in an X behind it. Her right sleeve bore a black badge stripe with the Fraktur script of New Franconian.  _ Francesco de Trier.  _ Her upper arm sleeves were flashed with the badge of the Earthreign, and a row of rank boards covered her left breast with a single decoration, a white scarf wrapped around the neck at a jaunty angle instead of a tie, and a full peaked cap with that eagle, minus the rockets, again repeated. She folded black gloved hands, and Will felt like he was looking at a ghost. Then she spoke, and he realised it was River Tam.

“Commander Atreiad, your shuttle has requested a docking vector. I’ve sent them to the nearest bay and you’ll have a data-packet from Commander Imra momentarily to give you the best route to evacuate the Interuniversal Drive. I’d rather keep it aboard the  _ de Trier,  _ but I know your Alliance wouldn’t be happy about it, so it’s a fair trade.” She had a bit of a chipper grin. 

“Ah, of course…”

“ _ Kapitan-de-Fregate,  _ so we rank equally,” River was insouciant. 

“That’s an Earthreign uniform.” he didn’t bother making it a question. 

“Well-spotted,” River teased. “The enemy is only six hours away. Better be about it, gentlemen.” Her image flashed away again. 

“Gods… What in Hades is Abebech  _ up to _ ?” 

“Commander, the Captain will doubtless receive a full accounting. Until then, I don’t suggest caring. We have too much to worry about.” Fera’xero paused. “And it is Abebech.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incomplete Guide to Callsigns:
> 
> Huáscar -- White  
> Heermann -- Evans  
> Zhen'var -- Grau  
> Fei'nur -- Shovel  
> Abebech Imra -- Ray-Ban  
> William Atreiad -- Mother  
> Elia Saumarez -- Leather  
> Anna Poniatowska -- Hussar  
> Lar'shan -- Camel  
> Artesia de Más (Sayla) -- Donkey


	5. Act 5

#  Act 5

  
  
  
  
  


Aboard the  _ Huáscar,  _ Va’tor cautiously made her approach to Nah’dur’s office. As the Mental Hygienist and lead Mha’dorn for the ship, she had been Read In, and so, thinking about it, what was happening wasn’t terribly surprising. But it was still disconcerting for all of them. 

Nah’dur was curled in her office chair, eating some Tarik-gel soup, with her ytar at her side, looking half asleep. But her eyes shot alert as Va’tor approached, then she relaxed. “Va’tor,” she offered, looking abruptly very alert. “You have come to commence my project? We have enough time to do it now, before the enemy arrives. Even if the original motivation was overcome by events, I do believe it could be useful for propaganda purposes. I’ve selected a subject, one of the originals, who has military tattoos.”

“Ah..” Va’tor was drawn up short.  _ The recovery of the mind of one of the Reavers? Gods, of course that’s what she wants to do, now, of all times.  _ “Not quite. I was going to ask, how is Spacer Michaels? The man that Jubal Early  _ killed. _ ”

“Oh, he’s fine,” Nah’dur answered dryly. “Why even ask that question? I finished the procedures and restarted his heart and confirmed brain-wave function hours ago.” 

Va’tor leaned against the door-frame. The Dur, and the Jhur alike, were not telepaths. It was not  _ really  _ a surprise. “I just thought you should know, as a point in fact, that the telepaths on this ship can feel it when you bring someone back to life, Nah’dur. It is disconcerting to many.” 

“Is that so?” Nah’dur’s eyes perked and she straightened, finishing her mug of ytar. “Can you elaborate?” 

“Certainly. Both for us and the human telepaths death is commonly described as a door. It is normally thought that door is one-way, but as you know with sufficient experience, this is not strictly the case. People can come back from the dead.”

“Agreed. There is an afterlife, though there is no data on what it is. Those I have brought back remember the usual white lights, nothing more,” Nah’dur shrugged. “There is also a Hell, which I am more concerned about, for personal reasons unrelated to myself.”

“Does that keep you up at night, Surgeon-Commander?” Va’tor’s voice softened. The girl was not quite twenty, a  _ kit,  _ almost, and she had gotten the impression this subject was rarely far from her mind. 

“No, nothing so crass,” Nah’dur transfixed her with a stare. “That is dangerous territory, anyway. To put it simply, Va’tor, I am realistic. The dominant species of the multiverse is humans, and humans permit no allowance for circumstance. They are relentless, committed, sincere, and savage. I love them as much as they infuriate me. They can produce the likes of Zhen’var, as good a Dilgar as we, and Ka’var, a resolute mother in truth; they can produce the likes of Chapel and Brogan and Hauser, who set our people up to die. They can produce these Reavers, this abominable government, Nazis and idiots like the Federation galore, and even a creature like Abebech Imra. There was never going to be an alteration to the end game for Her. Circumstances don’t matter. Just morals. Still, it bothers me that there is a Hell, even if it is an inevitability for Her. Perhaps it is the filial piety of a daughter and perhaps it is the irritation of a scientist with something she thinks it unlikely she can quantify. Either way, it is there. If I am stealing people from it, good. I cannot accomplish the one goal in regard to it I would really like to, but, if it has a Lord who lusts for peoples’ souls, I have wounded him.” She laughed. “Or they have returned from heaven, in which case I am saving fools.” 

Va’tor knew exactly what Nah’dur was talking about, knew exactly what she used so many circumlocutions even now. She smiled tightly. “I was going to compliment you on executing what many would call a miracle.”

“Why? Four hours with a pulse blast through the heart? An hour floating in the void? I made these routine at A Bao a Qu. The elongation of this art will carry me to fourteen, fifteen hours, maybe more. I’m working on mapping degraded brain structure to duplicate with cybernetics so I can succeed in recovery of more comprehensively decayed brains.  _ That  _ is a challenge. Is it really so disconcerting, to know that I can bring the dead back?” 

“No,” Va’tor answered after a moment. “No. It was just disconcerting for some. When there are casualties in battle, I will warn them to be ready.”

“Thank you. I dislike, immensely, causing discomfort to any Mha’dorn. But I can hardly stop.” 

“You can hardly stop,” Va’tor agreed. “Do you fear a Hell yourself?” 

“Hmm, no. Mother-Shai’s Dharma is servicable enough. I have not done anything that would cause me regret before the Gods. Though I will have something to regret if I don’t get the chance to bring back those Reavers, Va’tor. Since you’re here, will you do it?” 

“The first principle of command is not to inflict on your subordinates what you would not do yourself, the humans tell me,” Va’tor replied levelly. “Yes, I’ll be the one to do the work.”

“Excellent.” Nah’dur jumped up. “Let get my scrubs on and call my surgical team. It’s time to go to war with some true  _ morons,  _ since nobody else would make this ridiculous thing, this  _ Pax _ ! Gods, Va’tor,  _ they’re the same species as the Nazi _ ! I love it! I hate it! It’s glorious!” 

  
  
  
  
  


Kalista was stirring. Hooded, cuffed, shackled, bound, but on a camp mattress from the marines, in what had been the Captain’s Sea Cabin of the  _ Francesco de Trier.  _ The door opened, and she could hear it. She twisted her head to focus on the individual entering, to see, despite the hood, if she could match them. 

It was Abebech. < _ Good girl, brave and loyal.> _ They were pitted against each other for a brief moment, and then Abebech was inside of her again, systematically. Their minds  _ meeting.  _ But this time, in a jumble of emotions, passions and memories, and Kalista could see, could  _ see,  _ Abebech, glasses and all, in a white uniform of black trim with gold adornment. 

A massive tactical globe surrounded them, and in it, ships were burning and dying. Ships of the Reich. Ahead of them, a star was expanding, guttering, dimming as it disappeared and re-appeared through a steadily less real pulse of separating fractals of space-time. In their minds, it seemed that reality itself screamed and howled, buffeting the cohesion of their very consciousness, the perception of the universe itself. In the hearts of the telepaths around her, controlling their ship by thought, the sight and the feeling alike were putting terror into the hearts, into those hearts who were linked to the minds of the officers who ruled, in fear and pride, trillions of mutes. Abebech, though, showed none of it. She merely raised her hand and manipulated the plot through psionic feedback, as steady as Constantine IX at the Mesoteichion. A vaguely Hispanic man appeared in a sector of it and with a gesture his image expanded to overlay the tactical globe, the holo capturing the sweat beading from his face.

“Admiral Jimenez, the Fourth of Seventeenth shall advance three AUs and pivot forty degrees to port to lay covering fires….”

The vision snapped away as soon as it had come. Abebech ripped the mask off of Kalista’s face and stared deep into her eyes. The woman was abruptly confronted with a hideous presence, a power, an afterburn of something immeasurably dark and evil. It crashed over her like a wave, pounded and roared, until Kalista felt like she was drowning in it. 

Then the wave passed, and only Kalista remained, alone in a tunnel. She followed it, confused, heart pounding, carefully scrambling over broken rock, scoured smooth by the power of the water. 

She turned a corner, and  _ there she was,  _ in the lab, the ‘Academy’, being modified by the Government of the Union, pitilessly drilled and indoctrinated. Terrified and angry all at once, she continued to advance, looking at herself. But the other-Kalista, the young-Kalista, didn’t notice, the doctors, the guards, didn’t notice. 

She reached the chair and lunged for herself, to unbuckle herself from the restraints. As she did, the mind’s eye curled in on itself. The younger woman in the chair was suddenly a slight Asian woman of browner skin, wearing the uniform of the Terran Reich. Dark eyes met dark eyes, and there was a sudden sense of ineffable kinship. 

Kalista knew she was looking at the mother she had never had. The restraints would not come off, and she screamed in rage, yanking at them. “ _ Mother _ !” 

The woman strained at the restraints, and her voice, when it spoke, was high and sharp and furious. “I am offended for my great country,” she said, “that my daughter is a slave, and all I have fought for is undone.” 

Kalista woke up again, and this time, screaming. 

Abebech was systematically removing her restraints. 

Kalista’s resistance guttered as she curled into a ball on the thin mattress, tears falling uncontrolled from her eyes as all the memories flooded together in a mad jumble. “Why… Why are you releasing me?” 

“Because Leftenant Xin’s daughter is not a slave, and generally, an Esper is not a slave,” Abebech answered simply. “Welcome to the crew of your mother’s ship, Midshipwoman Xin. Revenge, plainly put, is one of the finer pleasures of life. Your mother was one of the engineering officers, I might add.” 

“So this  _ was  _ your ship!?” Kalista shouted as Abebech turned and began to leave the cabin, remembering her words just before she had been stabbed.

“Oh, the  _ de Trier  _ was in the Third of Fifteenth,” Abebech replied with a laugh. 

Rubbing her wrists, Kalista leapt to her feet and followed her. 

  
  
  
  
  


“They’ve been gone a long while,” Zoe remarked, referring to Abebech and River and Simon. “So, what’s the plan, Sir?”

Mal shook his head wryly. Watching the preparations to fight the  _ de Trier  _ had been almost dizzying, and against a disciplined and organised military force he felt out of place. “War’s back on,” he answered, finally. 

“Is  _ that  _ so?” Jayne almost growled it out. “I didn’t sign up to fight in your damn war, Cap’m. I’m a fighter, not a soldier, not a Browncoat. I do jobs and I get the hell out.”

“Including jobs like sellin’ me out, Jayne?” Mal swung his legs down and rose from where he was sitting, leaning over the bigger man, but far more intimidating. “It was your damnfool decision to  _ come back  _ after leavin’, too, which without the  _ Huáscar  _ would have been the end of all of us. You are lucky to be welcomed back as part of this crew and don’t start gettin’ ideas about double-crossin’ me again or cuttin’ out whenever an opportunity presents itself.”

“ _ Serenity  _ ain’t a warship,” Jayne answered. “You think these folks with whatever they’re doin’ are gonna stick around? They’ll leave us in the lurch and we’ll find ourselves right back in Serenity Valley, ‘cept this time I’ll be stuck with ya there, probably wind up dead.”

“We’ve got more than  _ Serenity. _ ”

“That girl I helped find you? Maybe some rustbuckets?” Jayne laughed. “Cap’m, fightin’ just don’t make no sense for me. I mean, the  _ Huáscar  _ might just lose right now.”

“And you think we can get away from fifty-six Alliance ships comin’ down on us if we cut and run right now, Jayne, is that it?” 

“That just means we waited too long already. Shoulda got goin’ a while ago.” 

“Well, we’re not goin’ anywhere, Jayne,” Mal leaned down, eyes narrowing. “We’re gonna fight. Because if we don’t, after this, there is no escape. They will hunt us down through the entire ‘Verse to make sure the story of this ship and what happened here never get loose. Even if Captain Zhen’var leaves They Will Not Rest, you hear me?” 

Jayne shook his head and tried to look away. 

“You want to end up in an Alliance camp, Jayne? They will put you there, even if they promise you money first.” 

“I just don’t know what the hell we’re fightin’ for! What is it, Mal? What are we fightin’ for? ‘Cuz with this ship that River’s got the codes or whatever for, it sounds like we’re fightin’ for her. You’ve heard the star-folk talk about where it’s from, it’s from the damned  _ Terran Reich,  _ some kinda Empire. Empire of Telepaths, people like River, lordin’ over us regular folk, probably lookin’ in our minds whenever they feel like it just like River already does. She gonna make herself Queen of Londinium, Mal, is that it? Is that what’s gonna happen? Is that what we’re fightin’ for!?”

“We’ve been with River and Simon for almost two years now, Jayne, and I ain’t seen any sign of that in them. She’s a good girl and she’s healing by the day. If she has the power in her hands to take down the Alliance, when we don’t have any choice no more but to try, then I say we use it.”

“And you think that power isn’t gonna corrupt just like it has for the Alliance? You think she won’t want to use it for whatever the hell she wants inside of her crazy head?” 

“I think she’s got a family, Jayne, and that’s what’ll make the difference.” Mal turned away. “And I think the Alliance, plain and simple, deserves to go down. I did when I fought before,” he forestalled Jayne with a hand, “and I lost that, and I accepted they were our Government now. But since they have gotten worse. They let the power over the whole Verse go straight to their heads and they are gonna keep running with it until they destroy us all or are brought down. Now I would sooner give River a chance with this ship than all the bureaucrats in Londinium. She has done good things, and I ain’t seen one yet out of ‘em.”

“Ai’right, we’re in this,” Jayne was shaking his head and rubbed the barrel of his rifle. “Ai’right. But what’re we gonna do?” 

Mal hear the footsteps first and turned to face them. “‘Reckon we’re about to find out.”

River arrived, wearing a uniform of white with black trim and gold fittings. Beyond the Waffenrock, it extended to a knee-length white skirt with broad black pinstripes and black boots and stockings. Mal started. 

Abebech was by her side, Simon following along. “Just in case, I resolved we could not say she was an unlawful combatant,” Abebech smiled thinly. 

“It’s very pretty that it’s got a skirt, isn’t it?” River laughed, and twirled on one boot to let it flair. Even now she could be purely girlish. 

Mal and Zoe looked at each other sharply. “Well, Sir,” Zoe shook her head, “she looks a damn sight better than a purple-belly. It’s got some class.” 

“River’s very taken by it right now,” Simon explained with a wry shake of his head and a grin. “I would have never expected to see her in a military uniform in my entire life, but it grows on you a little.” 

“Well, it won’t matter to the Alliance, but I understand the principle of it,” Mal answered, shaking his head. “What’s the plan, Commander Imra?” 

“Get Kaylee and Emma from the ship and form a blocking detachment to guard access to the main bridge deck, just in case,” Abebech replied. “Their objective is certainly to board us, but we are preparing a surprise for them, and Bea’s Resistance people are crewing up the prizes.” 

“Ain’t no place for an infant in a blocking detachment. Or Kaylee, really.”

“There’s no good place at all for them,” Abebech replied, “but they can stay with Simon at one of the emergency medical stations we’ll establish inside the bridge block. If the enemy gets past you… Well, the armoured keel of a  _ Vengeur  _ will be the safest place in this fight, I promise.”

Zoe smiled thinly. “You’re likely right about that. Let’s do it, Sir.”

“Well, she’s the mother. Let’s do it.” Mal smiled and tipped a lazy salute. “Not much longer than that.” 

“No, but so much the better,” Abebech shrugged. “I tire of waiting.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Warning squadron, this is PriFly Actual. Commence launch sequence.” Stasia took a long guzzle from her coffee, and then added, softly, “Yan tután, aagáa yéi kgwatee.” Word of what Elia and Arterus were up to had gotten around.

“..What was that, PriFly? Over.”

“Have Faith, and It Shall Be,” Stasia smiled grimly. “Launch on discretion, Warning Squadron.” 

“Confirmed, PriFly, launching by element. Over.”

Stasia watched the runabouts accelerating out of the main hangar. One after another, the twelve of them went spaceborne. Around them, the four earliest of the Resistance ships, converted freighters, had already arrived or were arriving. Their targets were the rest. 

But most of all aboard them were two officers that Stasia deeply respected, and many pilots and other volunteers, going into a mission that most rational people would consider insane. She wasn’t at all pleased about that, but there was nothing to do, but whisper a battle-prayer and wait. 

The runabouts ducked behind the  _ de Trier  _ and formed up. From a dead start they accelerated to match the relative velocities predicted for their final destinations, and then activated their warp drives, a moment later--none of the ships were far--deactivating them to slid in alongside. A few frantic messages were exchanged by tight-beam as the plan came together. Two went the shortest distance of all, and came in to meet the prizes.

After dropping off the volunteers, the last two runabouts went to collect more Resistance fighters. Then they leapt back to their muster point, masked by the  _ de Trier.  _ From that, they would be beamed aboard the prizes the  _ Huáscar  _ had taken. Many might be Union veterans, but they still had only five hours to bring the ships to life. It would have to do.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Zhen’var stirred from her hammock, rigged over her old bed in the sea cabin of the  _ Huáscar,  _ and a welcome addition that had been one of the positives about this mission, arriving just in time. Settling in at her desk after replicating herself a bowl of one of her dumpling specials, Laziz Lamb Handi, chai and a cup of raita to dip it. The more she read the reports, the more she frowned.  _ Abebech, what are you up to? You are being too clever, I think… _ Glancing to the chrono, the Dilgar woman audibly sighed as she brought up her omnitool.  _ ‘Commander Imra, I wish to discuss your intentions, if it is convenient before the action.’ _

“ _ Captain, of course.”  _ An incoming visual on the small persocomp screen resolved itself into the bridge of the  _ Francesco de Trier,  _ Abebech sitting in the Captain’s chair, and a faint image of someone in a white and black uniform behind. “Captain. What do you wish to discuss? I aim to defend the  _ de Trier  _ to the utmost.” 

“I agree it is necessary, but… you have other aims, I discern from the reports I am receiving. I would know what they are, if you are amenable to informing me.”

“The  _ de Trier  _ is not our’s to control, Captain. Not the Alliance’s.”

“Then whom is to control her, Abebech?” She slipped into informality, eyes shining with concern.

“The daughters of her crew. The Union Espers, Captain, and in River in particular. They were all intentionally gestated to have telepathy by secret modification behind the backs of their parents, using genetic samples from the mummies of deceased crewers of the  _ de Trier. _ ”

“I can… accept that.” Her voice was soft, and her gaze distant. “It is fair, and just. Is that her behind you, in the strange uniform?”

“Yes.” Abebech altered the field of vision to focus on River as well. “I helped set the autotailor to produce the uniform of a  _ Kapitan-de-Fregate  _ of the Terran Reich.”

River waved lazily, her focus on her screen. 

A soft hiss escaped as Zhen’var breathed in sharply. “As much of a statement as a Dilgar uniform, I suppose. You have been busy, Abebech. She is to be  _ Captain _ Tam, then? And she has accepted, by her posture...”

“Kalista is with us, but she can’t be trusted by the Resistance so quickly,” River spoke up.

Abebech nodded. “She is the  _ only  _ one. Captain, I am a historian by education. To an Esper in S0T5, that means I collect things as tangible to me as books to you. Thoughts. One set of them was the encrypted fleet command codes of the Imperial Space Forces, passed from generation to generation as a memetic legacy in those who did not recognise their significance. This ship will not  _ respond  _ to any but a telepath bearing those codes in their mind, by design.”

“So the ship responds and answers to her… I start to understand more clearly.”

“And I.” Abebech coughed gently. “So other than defence against boarding and some damage control teams, it’s River and I fighting this ship in the upcoming battle. And we do have one main reactor, one main thruster block, and those eleven guns operational.” 

“I shall keep what detachments from the Huascar you may need aboard, to assist you in fighting her in the coming action.”

“Thank you, Captain. We can discuss the next steps when we have won?” 

“Agreed, Commander. Good fortune to yourself and Captain Tam.”

“Thank you.” Abebech dipped her head. “There needs to be no modifications to the plan we previously discussed. The  _ de Trier _ ’s batteries can do their part.” 

“We shall be hard pressed, but the valiant way shall see us to the other side. See you there, Abebech.”

“And you, Zhen’var.” Abebech tipped a salute. “By your leave?” 

“So granted. Thank you for explaining matters.” Blanking the screen, Zhen’var looked at the overhead.  _ You are not yet telling me everything, Abebech… _

The thought was interrupted by the door. “Commander William Atreiad.” 

_ I am going to find a way to tear that speaker from the bulkhead… _ “Come ahead!”

The doors swished open to her ready room and then the sea cabin. Will stood at attention. “Captain. I’m sorry I couldn’t explain why, but it wasn’t even for a secured channel. Commander Fera’xero and I just recovered a Darglan interuniversal drive from the engineering spaces of the  _ de Trier. _ ”

“ _ Divine _ , of course it was not even for a secure channel!” She had barely bitten back an exclamation in Hindi, her eyes widely huge. “That calls into question much so-called history…”

“Don’t I know it…” Will shook his head. “Fera’xero observed that the Reignfall, Swenya’s Darkness War, the scouring of our home Earth, and the end of the Darglan interuniversal era--all happened three thousand years ago. I thought about it for a moment, realised he was right, of course, and it chills me to the bone, Captain. Gods, it does.”

“It should. Some-day, I will be able to articulate what I  _ suspect _ .”

“That they’re all related? That’s what I’m staring in the face right now, Zhen’var. This  _ Vengeur _ -class dreadnought of the Terran Reich sitting in our faces with Darglan tech aboard.” 

“Not merely related… but we will speak of it, some-day soon, I hope. We have a battle looming upon us, presently.”

“Understood.” Will pursed his lips tautly for a moment. “Point of fact, the enemy will be close enough to commence action with the long-range guns in another forty-five minutes. We should be beginning our final preparations.”

“Indeed, Commander. Call the crew to stations in another fifteen. This will be a hard fight, still, and we are not finished in this system even after that. We will prepare a physical report for Admiral Maran to be carried by courier as soon as we are finished here.”

“Understood. Gods keep us, Captain.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Sound General Quarters.” 

The alarms again filled the ship. This time, every system was functional, the ship had warp drive at Zhen'var's discretion, and they knew exactly what they were getting into. The trap was ready, and it was time to fight.

“Time, four minutes, thirty-two seconds, Captain,” Lieutenant Orallian, the Gersallian Ops watch officer standing in for Elia, reported. “We are at Material Condition ZEBRA with all shields at full power, all weapons standing, by and full power available.”

The plan was, in a certain way, simple. The  _ de Trier  _ would slowly bring thrust up, creating an ionised drive tail. The  _ Huáscar  _ would pull away, commencing long-range fires from ranges at which the enemy could not reply. The fighters and bombers had already been launched, and were standing by in the wreckage of the  _ de Trier  _ to ambush the enemy when they closed with her to board. Bea’s squadron was standing by in the drive tail with the fireships. 

While the  _ Huáscar  _ weakened the enemy, the fighters would harass and drive the enemy squadron toward the  _ de Trier.  _ Then the Resistance ships would lead the fireships into the mass. Staying under thrust, they would cut through and seek to escape. The shuttles hiding on the flanks of the  _ de Trier  _ would get the crews of the fireships off. Including Elia Saumarez, Zhen’var’s best friend. 

Ahead the fleet loomed, fifty-six ships:  _ Longbow, Trebuchet  _ cruisers,  _ Victoria  _ corvettes, ELINT corvettes, and two utterly massive, ten-million-tonne  _ Crete _ -class carriers, as large as the  _ Huáscar _ . With them, Firefox fighter-bombers, Warhammer interceptors, both by the hundreds, and hundreds of cutters and short-range enforcement vessels, armed with their EMP generating charges, and dozens of assault landers waiting to convey Marines to the  _ de Trier.  _

_ May the divine bless us with fortune… _ “ _ de Trier  _ Actual,  _ Huáscar _ Actual. We are cleared and ready for action.”

“Some of Fera’xero’s scratch engineering teams are still hydraulically jacking blast doors closed, but we have more time before coming under attack,  _ Huáscar  _ Actual” Abebech responded immediately. “I am preparing to bring up Main Thruster No.7.” The first challenge would be seeing if it actually worked, regardless of whether or not it said it was nominal.

“May your sword hold to the last blow,” Zhen’var offered from an old Dilgar benediction. “ _ Huáscar  _ out.”

The channel cut, and as the  _ Huáscar  _ steadily pulled away, she watched, from what had once been an enormous cluster of thirty-two engine bells, deceptively primitive looking, at the back of the  _ de Trier,  _ the multispectral image showing a flare as the gravimetrics kicked on and stabilised, able to redirect the thrust at will, and then a huge column of bright glowing blue ionised matter shot forth, and stabilised into a low glowing cyan, redirected slightly down and to the starboard to balance the thrust relative to the ship’s centre of gravity.

“Great Goddess,” Daria whispered. “She’s really brought power up.”

“Steady, guns. It  _ is  _ a sight no-one has seen in three thousand years,” Zhen’var acknowledged. “But we’ll be in range in minutes.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” Daria took one last glance at the cylindrical thrustship of a monster slowly increasing her acceleration toward eight gravities, and began targeting with long-range sensors of the incoming fleet. 

“Aim for the big ones,” Zhen’var said coolly. “I want to shake them.”

“Going for the carriers first…” Daria selected one of the massive  _ Crete  _ class ships. They weren’t in range yet, but she could start refining her targeting picture… The  _ Huáscar  _ turning to port and speed continuing to increase as their acceleration peaked past two hundred gravities. Having arrived in the local system, the pulse drives of the Union ships wouldn’t help them again, and without those long distance but limited mass-cancelling drives, their accelerations were poor enough that there was no way they could keep up. Hells, the converted freighters in the Resistance force could barely keep themselves in the  _ de Trier _ ’s drive tail as she limped her way up to eight gravities.

“They may not have enough information to realise that we’re going to be ranging on them and think we’re retreating,” Will remarked through the intercom as he watched the enemy fleet continue to fail to manoeuvre or otherwise respond to their actions. 

“Perhaps, but I do not want any additional surprises. Disabuse them of the notion once you have the range.”

Will interpreted that literally, as Zhen’var’s command style dictated. “Daria, you are fire free.” 

“Fire free,” she repeated, the Dorei woman studying sharply the tactical displays as they counted down the remaining range. 

The counter ticked over and the indicators went green. Daria grabbed the trigger and fired a massive rippling broadside of forty solar torpedoes as the main PPCs opened fire on the starboard beam. They lanced across the stars to a target that would be perfectly invisible to the naked eye, now under the guidance of FTL sensors again with the jamming field completely gone. 

The pinpoints of lights the flashes represented meant something else entirely on the tactical display, and to the approaching Union Government Fleet. It was a credit to their alert and capable sensor operators that they turned their autocannon on the incoming torpedoes. Even at high c-fractional velocities, they had just enough warning to turn the anti-missile defences on them. 

Against the heavy PPCs there was no protection at all. The armour of the carrier was thick, but the immense power of the energy weapons scoured its length like the hand of a god. The carrier staggered, and turned away. As it did, three torpedoes slipped through the defence--which was superb, to take out thirty-seven--and exploded down her side in flashes of fury greater than even an atomic bomb blast of the heaviest type carried by their missiles. The ship lurched and went hard to port, a brave  _ Trebuchet  _ frantically interposing itself. 

“One of the carriers has hauled out of formation, Captain,” Orallian called out. 

“They’re massively attriting our torpedoes at this range, they have very good point defence, I’m restricting fire to PPCs only,” Daria added, “otherwise we’ll run out without much to show for it.”

The fleet reacted immediately. They started to launch their assault landers early, especially those on the second  _ Crete.  _ The first carrier, in fact, began to launch from her port bays despite the immense internal damage she had suffered. This fight wasn’t going to be so easy. Blossoming across the tactical displays, the Union fleet began to launch their maximal-range missiles in a salvo whose numbers steadily ticked toward a thousand. They were  _ not  _ completely helpless, and they weren’t about to let the distant enemy wound them without reply. 

But at this range the  _ Huáscar  _ had plenty of options to attrite the salvo. “They’re launching, Captain. Full strength missile wave to overwhelm us, based on current course with a reasonable prediction cone,” the stocky Gersallian man quickly confirmed, highlighting the tactical display on the screen in sections and expanding them to provide the Captain the information she needed. 

“A micro-jump to move clear, or stand and give them fire with our energy weapons, do you think?” The salvo was big enough to where the effort to jump would have been strongly considered in EarthForce. “Can the missiles be re-targeted onto our other ships if we make the jump?”

“...” Orallian frantically worked the computations through the massive computers of the  _ Huáscar.  _ “Not if we wait another two minutes. We won’t be in danger from the lead part of the wave for another three minutes, fifteen seconds. They can be brought back around on the  _ de Trier  _ at that point but they would be flying dead on ballistic trajectories, so any manoeuvring on the  _ de Trier _ ’s part at all would shake them.” 

That was enough for Zhen’var’s crew to start getting ready. “Laying in a course at warp. Want me to come in behind them at weapons range, Captain?” Violeta hastily completed the computations. “Engineering, stand by for Warp Five.”

“Warp five at your discretion, helm,” Anna confirmed even as Violeta waited for Zhen’var’s decision.

“Engage in two-minutes, then. Alert  _ de Trier _ of our intentions. Bring us in behind them at maximum effective weapons range.”

Tor’jar worked the comms. “ _ de Trier  _ Actual confirms, Captain.”

Violeta watched the timer zero out and activated the warp drives. For a moment they were in a blur of motion, and then they lunged out of position. It was worse than that for the Government fleet, which due to its sublight sensors didn’t realise they had altered positions initially, and then saw  _ two  _ of them. 

Daria opened fire, targeting the second carrier she had already been hammering. The full forward batteries ripped into it and tore through it. A massive string of secondary detonations tore through the engine block and darkened it, the thrusters guttering out in the night as additional detonations rippled down the flanks of the immense ship. Now it was ironically the  _ first  _ carrier that had initially hauled out that was still limping toward contact with the  _ de Trier.  _

“The missiles haven’t been redirected. They want the  _ de Trier  _ intact, Captain,” Orallian reported. 

Zhen’var growled softly. “They are not fools, our enemy keeps their eyes on the correct objective. Keep up our fire, attrit them as heavily as we can before our wing must come to action.”

“Coming about to starboard to keep us within the engagement plan,” Violeta noted. Daria acknowledged and adjusted the firing pattern to account for it. The  _ Huáscar  _ slowly turned back in on herself, to keep the enemy from being tempted to follow her to the far side of the  _ de Trier.  _

The enemy squadron was now matching velocity and approaching the ship’s great flanks, even as the long-range PPC fire picked off the first cruiser to be claimed in the action, the Government fleet powerless to reply. This was battle, in all of its grim majesty. For the moment they reaped like Gods, but a minute later their friends and comrades would be in desperate straits. The engines strained up to full power, and the  _ Huáscar _ ’s port batteries thrummed in her deck. “The White”, as her distant ancestress had been called in the War of the Pacific, turned back to close the range. 

It was all mathematical now, the fire they could put out met by the Government ships’ ability to absorb it, and the Captain’s face was a blank mask as their fire lanced out.  _ El’sau, please, come through this  _ **_alive_ ** _ , I ask no more than that of the universe. _

  
  
  
  
  


Artesia watched the approaching fleet match velocity and acceleration with the  _ de Trier  _ from her position at standby with her squadron, nestled by the docking tractors close up against the hull of the great ship, in amongst the ribs and shattered plates. It was intimidating simply to see the metres and metres of melted and shattered armour plates. Sometimes, now under thrust, some part that was loose and had not been dislodged in thousands of years of drifting brushed past them and tumbled out into a debris trail behind them, a haunting simulcra of how she must have looked first arriving in the system.

IR seekers on her missiles cheerfully began to chime as they locked onto a brace of Short Range Enforcement Vessels, and her micro-torpedo tube began to track a group of assault transports coming in. Still they waited. The Government fleet was de-accelerating above them, finally meeting zero-zero relative the  _ de Trier.  _

She could see them, now holding position. There were still more than fifty ships, but even as they assumed their positions, turning into a half-globe formation to defend against the  _ Huáscar  _ facing out like a defensive hedgehog, another of the  _ Longbow  _ type cruisers was bracketed by heavy PPC salvoes. Pummeled over the course of a minute with the beams lancing in from the distant  _ Huáscar,  _ a pinpoint of starlight at long range, the cruiser began to come to pieces, fuel stores exploding around the engines in a furious white fusion detonation that blasted the after hull from the central pylon, sparking as plating went flying in a dozen directions. 

If their troops retook the  _ de Trier,  _ it would be worth it for them. Mission Complete, regardless of the casualties. 

Final target assignments popped up and Artesia grinned. Suddenly, comms silence was broken. “All squadrons,” Lar’shan’s voice boomed over the comm, “ _ Commence the Attack! Rung-ho! _ ”

Artesia deactivated her docking tractor, manoeuvring thrusters spitting fire as she brought her nose up. “Epsilon wing, form on me! Full ahead!” She rammed the throttles back, and at hundreds of gravities, the Mongoose climbed like a rocket on takeoff from the hull of the  _ de Trier.  _

The computer whined with the familiar indicator of tone lock, and she salvoed her anti-fighter missiles on fire-and-forget, then came around and shifted through armament. After she confirmed it was the micro-torpedoes for the transports, she opened fire as her fighter tore through them, pivoting the nose down and briefly cutting thrust to chew through yet another with her main pulse cannon before bucking the nose back around. A line of three enforcers were burning and exploding, and more were flaring up around them, the energies of the Alliance missiles far greater than anything they had been designed to face; it was one shot, one kill.

A squadron of Warhammers descended on her, and she coiled around another group of incoming transports. “Epsies, stay on the transports! I’ll keep the fighters off of you!” She flicked the switch to outboard and made her second kill with guns, and the first fighter, as she skidded across their course after ducking through their own transports. 

And then Abebech’s voice cut the night. “All ships, this is  _ de Trier  _ Actual. Stay away from those cruisers! We are  _ fire free _ !” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


There were just the two of them on the bridge for command crew. Abebech didn’t trust Kalista with the codes yet. She’d have to prove herself first. But Goodenough, Ca’elia, and Abdulmajid were there. They couldn’t interface with the computers, but with River and Abebech setting up data-feeds for them, they could monitor the reams of information the computers were now providing and alert them to anything coming up, so they could focus on fighting.

With the sole operational main engine locked down to provide a constant eight gravities, massive banks of red and amber lights glowed around the bridge, indicating failed and critical systems. “Six hots and eight crits in the main weapons feed buses,” Goodenough indicated. 

“What about feed-buses eleven and fourteen?” 

“Both nominal, Captain,” Goodenough replied. The technical terms were familiar enough that the crash course in New Franconian and some help from the omnitool were mostly enough. 

“That will do.”  _ <River, get on it.> _

_ <Routing mains through feed-buses eleven and fourteen,> _ she answered. < _ All right. We have mains power to the operational batteries and cannon.> _

< _ Frigate-Captain, port turbolasers, engage! _ > “We are engaging,” she repeated for the benefit of her mute officers.

Four turbolaser batteries erupted fire down the  _ de Trier _ ’s port flank, with red bolts two hundred metres long flashing through the void. Each battery was a cluster of five cannon in an armoured housing, able to train and engage semi-independently but linked to a single power supply. After they fired, the heavy batteries took six seconds to recharge. 

The battle had been shaped according to the plan that they were given with Zhen’var, because the port side was more intact than the starboard, and now Abebech had five of seven and two of four neutron cannon at her disposal to engage with. The turbolasers spake first, and when they did, a  _ Trebuchet- _ class cruiser simply  _ exploded.  _ At point-blank range, the searing power of the main batteries reached the main reactors and fused the fuel on the ship, detonating her in an enormous fusion reaction which reduced the hull to embers and a brilliant white flare across the night. 

Now Abebech p’grabbed the Neutron Cannon controls through the interface and opened fire with them as well. The two green beams lanced through the night, targeting a Longbow each. They had plenty of power on a single charge to scour down the length of the hull of the ships. In the darkness of space around them, she could  _ feel  _ through her powers, the chill of horror and terror spreading through the enemy fleet. If that fire kept up, they were dead by rights. 

The beast within relished it.  _ Fear us! Fear us! As it was in ancient days!  _

  
  
  
  
  


Elia had led her cruiser out of the drive tail the moment that Abebech had conveyed she was opening fire. Ahead of her, Bea’s Resistance people thrusted hard with their squadron, straight toward the fleet that heavily outnumbered them. On the screen, past the rack which had once held skulls, she could see that the  _ de Trier  _ really was in action.  _ Longbow _ -class ships were burning ruins along her flank, neutron beams having done the job, as horrifyingly perfect as they had been against Earth in the late war. One of them was cut in two, just as cleanly as if the Minbari had done it at the Line. But now it was her enemies and the oppressors of telepaths who did it. A savage thrill cut the anxiety in her heart, strapped in as the cruiser and its skeleton crew burned hard on a final mission. 

“Steady as she goes.” Ahead of them the eight Resistance ships--two  _ Trebuchet _ -class cruisers and a  _ Victoria _ -class corvette captured from the Government, plus five armed freighters--blasted into the heart of the enemy formation, salvoing their missiles. The two ships she was leading, one  _ Longbow  _ planetary assault model sold out to civilian service and captured by Reavers and one armed freighter, looked merely like the rearguard. 

Behind her were sixty-eight solar torpedoes. 

She activated the ship to ship lasercom. “Leftenant tr’Rllaillieu, take the port group. They’re cleaving and concentrating to bear their batteries against the wedge.” 

“Aye, Ma’am. Arm the torpedoes?” 

“At discretion,” Elia answered. It was only a small level of safety. “At discretion.” She leaned into her restraints and watched a wave of plasma pulse and autocannon fire converge on the squadron lead. 

The nature of the weapons and sensors used by the Union dictated that the engagement ranges were much closer than Zhen’var ever tried for with the  _ Huáscar  _ in normal drill. It was the one thing which made the plan viable. 

“The Lord Shall Prosper Us This Day,” Elia whispered as she watched one of the  _ Trebuchet _ -class cruisers the Resistance fighters were crewing be chewed up from stem to stern by heavy fire of a concentration of the Government ships. Falling out of formation, her systems were killed by EMP bombs. 

Elia tapped her omnitool. “Shuttle force, Leather; get the crew off the  _ Achille,  _ quickly now!”

“Leather, we are standing by to--”

“That’s an order, get them clear.” She turned to Lieutenant Ni’vur “Arm the torpedoes!”

“Helm, steer for that concentration of ships.” She patted the armrest of her acceleration couch and reached up, poised for a moment as she watched the final fate of the cruiser, torn apart by fire from a dozen ships until she erupted in a final intense gout of flame. 

Now those dozen ships were starting to turn toward  _ her.  _ “Lock the helm!” 

“Helm locked, Ma’am!” 

  
“Thirty second timer.” 

“Thirty seconds on your mark, Commander,” Ni’vur answered.

“Mark.” Elia tapped her omnitool. “Shuttle force; Leather. Carry us off!”

_ Static.  _


	6. Act 6

#  Act 6

  
  


“Shuttle force, now would be a good time,” Elia continued, pitching her voice to be chipper despite the lack of response. 

“Twenty seconds, Commander!” 

The Government ships opened fire. “Helm…” Elia trailed off, remembering she had already ordered it locked down. The timer wouldn’t matter a whit if the torpedoes were energy fused by a good salvo punching through the old, deranged armour of the damaged Reaver ship.

Then a blazing flurry of green lances seared at the edge of her retina, exploding outward from the side of the  _ de Trier.  _ The energy bolts connected with their targets, two of the enemy cruisers burning, smashed open…. Rent from stem to stern. Abebech had grown confident enough to split her fire with two batteries laid on each ship. Venting debris, burning atmosphere and seared bodies, the two cruisers tumbled away, hopelessly crippled. 

“Ten seconds,” Ni’vur prepared a countdown. “Ni…”

“Oh don’t bother with that load of rot, Combat Master,” Elia shook her head. “It’ll be fine.” 

Another enemy squadron converged, guns tracking.  _ Good, come on, get closer, if I’m going to die ten of you isn’t enough you sorry bastards.  _ “ _ Shuttle force..?”  _ She asked again. 

“ _ Beaming, Commander! _ ”

“Might be a bit la--.” Mercifully, the word was cut off by the feel of the Darglan type transporters yanking her away from the hulk. She found herself flashing back into existence on the transporter pad of one of the cargo shuttles holding itself against the hull of the  _ de Trier.  _ Her crew would be spread around several others because of their small size, but Ni’vur was with her.

Elia looked to the Dilgar Lieutenant and smiled. “See, look what I told you. No need for that bloody countdown.” 

“Err, certainly, Commander,” he answered, shaking himself. “Did we succeed?” 

“I’m not sure the sensors of a shuttle masked in a dreadnought can tell us, but we certainly did ride it down their throats,” Elia answered, stepping over to the replicator in the back of the shuttle. “Thanks for the save!” She called to the pilot, before replicating herself a cuppa. “...Fancy any  _ ytar _ , Leftenant? I shouldn’t want to leave you out.” She was quite worried about Arterus, actually, but as long as there were subordinates around felt nothing else would do.

“Commander Saumarez,” the pilot turned around. “We’re going to beam you with the rest of your crews to the  _ de Trier  _ in case the shuttles come under attack. No need to risk you.”

“Thank you, Leftenant.” A pause. “If I may, do we know if Leftenant tr’Rllaillieu’s group got off as well?” 

“They did, Commander.”

“...See, I told you, Ni’vur, it all worked out perfectly fine…” She stepped back up onto the transporter pad and handed him his  _ ytar  _ just before they both again disappeared in a flash of white. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


A large flare of white again dissipated into dust before them as a  _ Victoria _ -class corvette was incinerated by the awesome power of the intact turbolaser batteries converging on it. < _ Good work, keep clearing the way for Elia.> _

< _ Of course, silly, that’s more important than going for the big ones.> _ River flashed her a brief grin before turning back to her readouts. 

“Captain, power surge on the …” Goodenough’s words were cut off by the tremendous detonation.

The lead fire-ship detonated, and moments later, the second. Immense white flashes as terrible, but worse still, than those inflicted by the batteries of the  _ Francesco de Trier  _ tore into the heart of the fleet, obscuring for a moment the flaring energy and anger of a neutron beam tracking across the battlefield. The beam found purchase nonetheless, and another corvette reeled, tumbling off course with a huge gash of flickering, melted metal across its flank.

It paled as nothing before the terrific damage of the conflagration. The spreading explosions had easily wrecked or damaged a dozen Government ships outright, vapourised some. In the guttering sparks of cooling metal debris across the battlefield, there were also the tumbling wrecks of vessels further out, driven and dashed against each other as pieces of flotsam battered in the surf. 

Abebech folded her gloved hands. The thought was too intense to hide, the sentiment River could clear p’hear, hoping that Elia had survived. As the ships tumbled, spewing atmosphere and debris and bodies, twenty wrecks in the void, the shattered heart of a great fleet, it was all they could do.

  
  
  
  
  


Artesia snapped another nose pivot back toward an incoming squadron of Warhammers. Tone lock squealing in her helmet, she raked across one, then another, taking both  _ en passant  _ as the groups tore across each other’s courses. 

The battle was not going well, simply because of how badly outnumbered they were by the enemy fighters. Even as she killed another two, they had started the engagement with odds long against them. One hundred fighters and bombers and twelve runabouts were going up against more than eight hundred fighters and an equal number of enforcers and cutters. All the technology in the Multiverse hardly mattered at sixteen to one!

She snapped into another violent nose-pivot, but this time laid on maximum thrust to avoid a brace of enforcers coming in close. Once clear of the risk of a collision, she brought the nose up again and fired across the belly of one, the pulse phasers ripping weapons mounts apart and dishing in the thin hull. Air fled in a trail, turning to ice as it did. 

“All squadrons, pull back! Pull back!” Lar’shan’s voice echoed across the main channels.

Artesia and the other pilots knew what it meant, and she snapped her nose away from the globe of capital ships and again slammed the throttles to full. A moment later, she flicked shields double-rear as her periphreal vision exploded with white. The Mongoose violently bucked in her hands as Warhammers behind and around her and several enforcers and cutters were also torn to pieces, captured in the wave and buffeted until they shattered and their fuel was detonated by the energy of the blast. 

“All squadrons,” Lar’shan was speaking again a minute later. “Form up off the port bow of the  _ de Trier,  _ we need to take advantage of their disorder from the blasts to dress ranks! Engage assault landers only on opportunity while concentrating!” 

Artesia thumbed through channels to try and raise her squadron lead, but couldn’t get any response. “Epsilon flight, follow me forward,” she ordered, and there were only three of them now, not four. She cut down toward the surface of the  _ de Trier,  _ dodging around the massive turbolaser batteries lest they fire, and selected one of the bays. Most of the assault landers that hadn’t been destroyed before had already landed. 

She made sure the laggards paid for it. Her pulse phasers spoke again, and again, and claimed two more of the transports on her run to the concentration point, the work becoming as sharp and precise, and unfussy, as an old woman strangling a chicken in the rural Catalan of her girlhood. Behind her, the explosions faded like the dying of a star. 

  
  
  
  
  


On the  _ de Trier _ ’s bridge, the tactical picture updated again. Now it showed the cripples continuing to fall behind as they lost power, the rest of the Government fleet still in wanton disorder. Three-fourths of their strength was gone, annihilated, between the  _ Huáscar,  _ the torpedoes, and the fireships. These were the kinds of casualties which destroyed any military unit, no matter how strong or brave. 

Once, this ship had fought in a battle just as hopeless as the one she now inflicted. Again River targeted and fired the turbolasers, blowing a  _ Longbow  _ in two with a violent shattering of hull, gouts of plasma driving the two halves of the ship away from each other. But the enemy did not surrender. 

Abebech knew why. They were counting on the troops they had landed to take the  _ de Trier.  _ They would remain focused on their mission until the very bloody end. The promise of victory could yet make troops endure a terrific pounding. She knew it. She had led troops in doing the same before. 

And as long as she and River were tied to the command consoles of the  _ de Trier,  _ the threat was real. They could not fight the ship and confront the boarders at the same time. 

“Ray-ban, this is Leather.” 

Abebech sank slowly back in the command chair, to an extent that she had not realised her tension. “I see, Commander, that Fortune yet favours the bold. Welcome back to the living.”

“Well, it was a nearer thing than I should have liked, but both crews were recovered. I’m here with Leftenant tr’Rllaillieu and, Commander, the enemy is pushing toward your position aggressively. Colonel Fei’nur’s marines are reporting telepathic assistance.”

< _ Other Operatives. Other sisters,> _ River paled, where first her face had brightened in relief that Elia had survived. 

< _ Doubtlessly. _ > “Commander, is Midshipwoman Xin there?”

“She is,” Elia answered. “You want us to go forward?” 

“Please. I believe she understands the plan. At  _ all costs,  _ we want defections, not a gunbattle.”

“Don’t worry, Commander.” 

“I will trust in the usual reputation of Psi-Corps, Commander. See if you cannot link up to Colonel Fei’nur, but whatever happens, keep them from reaching the bridge.” She switched to the space comm. “Ray-ban to  _ Huáscar  _ Actual. The teams have been recovered, I repeat, the teams have been recovered. Leather and Feanor in the lot.  _ Huáscar  _ Actual, we have the better part of a regiment pressing as hard as it can with telepathic support for the  _ de Trier _ ’s bridge section. Please, we must end the naval battle as quickly as possible. The enemy is broken, they just don’t know it yet!” 

  
  
  
  
  


On the  _ Huáscar _ ’s bridge, Daria could  _ sense  _ the relief in Zhen’var’s heart. She also realised that the challenge was her’s. Elia was alive, but her responsibilities in battle had usually included management of the tactical picture for Zhen’var. Daria had been more of a gunnery officer than a true tactical officer. 

She had to pick that role up now. “Captain,” the Dorei woman said, carrying her voice to a pitch. “BLUF: The enemy fleet is hors d’combat and is now a distraction; the threat are the enforcers and the cutters.”

“Go on, Leftenant,” Zhen’var said simply. 

Daria kept the PPCs firing on pre-planned barrages even as she spoke. “Captain, the enforcers and cutters are massing with the remaining fighters to attack our own wing, and they still have a considerable supply of EMP bombs. They probably held off using them on the  _ de Trier  _ worked about leaving her out of control, but they might employ them now. If we don’t prioritise them, Captain, they’re going to massacre our fighters and keep us tied down for long enough that their boarding parties can still win the battle.”

“Can you target them effectively?”

“I’ll need to get in closer.”

“They’ll attack us with EMP charges if you do, Leftenant.” Zhen’var’s claws scoured at the granite. 

“Charges have no velocity, we have greater acceleration than any of them, Captain. We’ll launch slashing attacks. We can stand off far enough to guarantee they can’t put them in our course.”

“Leftenant Arterria?” Zhen’var’s cat-eyes sharpened. “Can you do it? Maximum acceleration, maximum de-acceleration, forward, aftwards relative the  _ de Trier,  _ again and again until we master them?” 

Violeta turned back and her voice reflected true confidence. “I’ll make her dance, Captain.”

“Then warp us into position for the first run!” She tapped her comm. “ _ de Trier  _ Actual,  _ Huáscar  _ Actual. We are coming in. Stand by to hold fire.”

“Preparing to hold turbolaser fire,” Abebech answered. “We will shift neutron cannon against the cutters, we can range on them.”

“Acknowledged. Make it happen,  _ de Trier. _ ” A pause. “Helm, execute.” 

Violeta tapped a single control to execute the warp manoeuvre she had laid in, at a leisurely Warp 2. It was still sufficient to put them right on top of the battlefield. 

“Camel, this is White,” Zhen’var signaled. “Form on us, we are making high speed passes. Keep the cutters off.”

They appeared, and Daria’s quick blue hands worked the firing controls, ears flexing. A moment later the medium and light batteries opened fire in earnest. They ripped through the ranks of cutters and gunboats. Against the medium batteries, none of the cutters and enforcers were strong enough to survive even a single hit, and the light batteries were intended as anti-missile units and could track them through any evasive manoeuvre as it chewed them up piece by piece. Twenty of the craft, too large to be good fighters and too small to be as resilient as capital ships, were destroyed in the first five seconds. 

They had the numbers on their side, and they had the weapon which had proved most effective against the  _ Huáscar  _ so far, EMP charges. But as they accelerated into attack positions, the great cruiser was moving  _ faster.  _ They knew their plan, they knew themselves, and they knew their enemy. 

The  _ Huáscar  _ roared past them at maximum acceleration, easily pushing past them before they could catch up to close the range and use the EMP charges. As she did her medium and light PPCs spat fire again and again and again. Behind the mass of the cutters and enforcers, the  _ de Trier  _ was firing too, two Neutron cannon beams sweeping the battlefield, catching the small craft and destroying them in puffs of fire and air, sparks of molten metal drifting into space and cooling as tumbling pieces remained. 

Lar’shan formed his fighters up to follow the  _ Huáscar,  _ staying on the outside and covering her. It was like a bullfight; as the  _ Huáscar  _ cleared the enemy, she de-accelerated and then spun about to accelerate again in the opposite direction. This time, her starboard batteries spoke, the fighters shifted to the opposite side and didn’t even engage. 

The commander of the Government forces, the Captain of the surviving  _ Crete  _ which had pulled well back from the action, could just watch in despair as his small craft were systematically annihilated without the ability to engage the enemy. The  _ Huáscar  _ twisted like a fighter at the end of her runs, spinning back and standing on her beam ends through the sharp turn, just for Violeta to bring her impulsors to full power again, and again. Maximum thrust to the redline in acceleration for three minutes, de-acceleration for three minutes, and she kept varying the angle so that the enemy couldn’t predict their course and put themselves in a position for ambush. 

It was a  _ massacre,  _ and to combat the demoralisation of the Government crews standing in place to buy time for their Marine comrades, they had only the thin hope that they would succeed, and take the  _ de Trier.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  


Aboard the  _ de Trier,  _ armour was waiting for Elia. She pulled herself into it before she realised it was not at all of Alliance make, and then shrugged.  _ Strength in metal doesn’t so easily yield over time. Not this ship, anyway.  _

Kalista arrived, already dressed in it, with the appropriate uniform under it. 

< _ Midshipwoman Xin?> _

< _ Commander Saumarez. Commander Imra told me to report to your position.> _

< _ Yes. This is certainly our last chance to stop a great effusion of blood among telepaths. I’ve already worked with Fei’nur; she’s concentrated the Mha’dorn and we’ll be going to join up with them,> _ Elia replied. < _ Come on.> _ She gestured, clutching her pistol, and started forward. 

The Marine detachment had eight Mha’dorn in it, and there was also Ensign Kel’dar who had been part of the group securing the engineering systems. Some of them were quite weak, but even the weakest telepaths could, when gestalted, use their talents against another, a reserve bank in a fight if nothing more. 

Lieutenant Koi’sar was the ranking Mha’dorn besides Elia herself, and he came to attention to salute as they arrived at the concentration point. Lieutenant Gha’tir was right next to him; the others were rankers. < _ All right, where’s the attack developing?> _ Elia asked, letting it be clearly conveyed to all at once.

< _ Sector 19, Deck 52,> _ Koi’sar answered. < _ Blocking detachment by  _ Serenity _ ’s crew. All other stop points have been driven back.> _

Elia pursed her lips. < _ Four people? Let’s roll!> _ She doubted they’d last a minute against what was coming down the pike for them.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Mal, Jayne, Zoe, and  _ Inara,  _ armed with a rifle taking from one of the arms lockers on the  _ de Trier,  _ a wickedly functional energy weapon. Mal had never expected to see his girlfriend packing a gun prepared to shoot purple-bellies, but there they all were.

Zoe, still shaky and looking a little sick, was settled in against a crew-served weapon, from the same armoury, with the other three covering her. There was a line of collapsed doors and metal access panels piled up to form a barricade. 

Mal waited patiently. Isolated from the comms network they just had their own little battle to fight, not knowing the details of the general engagement. But they knew that beyond them was Simon, a field hospital, Kaylee, Emma Washburne -- and River and Abebech and the command and control apparatus of the  _ de Trier.  _

There was a rustle down the corridor. Jayne leaned forward, but Mal quickly held up a finger, and he shushed down before he spoke. It was already growing louder; there was no need for a recon, there were troops coming down the pike. They were not friends. 

Despite her condition, it was Zoe’s gun that spoke first, and the better for it. Red lances of light shafted their way down the corridor leaving a blur across their vision. They virtually tore the bodies of the purple-bellies rounding the corner to pieces. A group of four were dropped in barely more than a second, to the screams of others behind. 

“The hell is that thing?” Jayne stared incredulously for a moment. 

“Effective,” Zoe answered with a laconic bit of a smirk. 

“An energy weapon, just like the big ‘uns on this ship,” Mal shook his head. “Inara?” 

“Well, I’m going to wait for a target to find --”

“They’re comin’ on again!” Jayne shouted, and let loose with Vera. A man toppled in a well of blood, and then another.

Inara’s gun spoke sharp red energy bolts, smaller versions of those from the tripod mounted gun. Mal joined in with his pistol. 

Between burns gouged through armour and good hits that left bloody traces across wounded and dead soldiers felled to the deck, they had quickly stopped another push. But from the rustlings down the side corridors, it was clear that they were going to be flanked. 

“Zoe, you hold the middle?” 

“Gonna have to, Sir, can’t move this thing.” 

“Inara, come on, we’ll go left,” Mal said, then. “Jayne, take the right.”

“By myself? You tryin’ to get me killed, Mal?” 

“You know your gun and you’ve got an armour-piercer. Do it.” 

Jayne rolled out to the right, and the moment he did, there was a sharp crack of fire. He went to ground, bringing Vera up to return fire. 

Inara and Mal managed to reach a set of doors the enemy hadn’t. They settled in to wait against them, and Mal took aim as the first of the purple-bellies began their flanking manoeuvre. He was surprised with the precision and surety by which Inara dropped the first with a single shot from the energy rifle.

The second went down to his pistol. It seemed like another probe that would melt away, when suddenly, eight of them rushed all at once. They both opened fire into the densely packed mass, felling them as they tried to press forward. 

But behind them came a girl with a shaven head. Mal grimaced, and raised his pistol to take the shot. 

Just as he did, she exploded into a pirouetting run straight toward their position, ducking aside both bullets and blaster-shots. A blade glinted in her hand, earnest and ready to deal with him and Inara using cold steel. Again and again they fired, and never quite hit her. 

< _ FALL BACK,> _ the command echoed in his brain like a hammer. Elia advanced from behind them with her pistol levelled, and pitted herself against the girl, buried deep in her precog. 

She was not alone, but represented just one arm of the gestalt. In the mental world she projected, she matched the single sword of the girl with a dozen about the banner. Three lions attacked and tore at her mental shields, while a wave of blood swept over them from above, mimicking the colour and heraldry of the flag of her islands, the Duchy of Normandy. She picked wedges into the shields with the coordinated efforts of eleven minds. 

The girl’s shields cracked open. Her wail of desperation, mental, was strong enough that despite the lack of a direct line of sight, her sisters came running. Kalista and the Mha’dorn followed from their side, leaving Mal and Inara to follow that ineluctable compulsion back to reinforce Zoe against the regulars. 

Exactly the way that Elia wanted it. She held her ground, and twirled a thought deep into the girl’s mind. < _ Iris. Kalista is here.> _ She led her consciousness up and around, surrounded by a wall of the others. Their ‘attack’ was a full disclosure, nothing less, and nothing more. A  _ vision,  _ of this ship, of ancestors they had not known, and of friends they did not know they had. 

A vision, of the burning horror of a future where they were known only as enforcers. Where they were hated behind their backs, and feared to their faces. A future as sure as following their current course could be. 

When the mass of Operatives ready for battle came around the corner, in aggregate they were stronger than the eleven they faced, all of them except Elia, who as a P9/10 outmatched them, and Kalista, their equal, were outmatched by the Operatives. The Dilgar around her were not strong. Kei’dar was a P6 as the strongest.

But they were  _ united.  _ They were gestalted. It was the telepathic equivalent of a testudo, pitted against a mass of wild and disorderly warriors. 

Yet, for all of that, they might have forced it to be an  _ unpleasant  _ ending. The one unitary objective of the telepaths was to end the situation without bloodshed. In the end, their opponents, able to see what the Government had done to them, able to see their own past, now simply had the ability to make a choice, fully informed, of their own free will.

The Standing seemed to stretch into infinity. As it did, Mal found himself covering Jayne as he slowly fell back, and Inara covered Zoe. The purple-bellies kept trying to push for their objective. 

Right up, anyway, until River arrived, and sent a dozen purple-bellies spasming to the ground at once. The firing abruptly slackened, even as they could hear it in many other areas ahead, as Colonel Fei’nur’s Marines executed counterattacks. 

“Though you were supposed to be flyin’ the ship,” Mal remarked as he looked, even now more than a little shocked. 

Behind River, Abebech padded quietly up. “Captain Zhen’var has settled the matter in the void. And we can receive positional updates even here.”

“Please secure the prisoners,” River offered. “We’ve got to... Take care of something.” 

It was with an almost uncomprehending nod that Mal watched them go toward the left. 

And it was  _ River,  _ not Abebech, that joined the gestalt. River, who greeted her sisters as a sister. River, who reached out and showed them how to not be alone, and form their own gestalt. All fifteen of them. 

The brooding, dark presence at the end of the corridor was hauntingly familiar in some ways, even more than Elia and her Mha’dorn compatriots. The Consensus of the gestalt was clear. 

The  _ Francesco de Trier  _ was theirs. Freedom was theirs, as it had been for their foremothers so long ago. There was no fighting. 

Quietly, as a group, they simply filed back toward the command spaces, unmolested by Abebech’s troops, and with Abebech silently watching, at Elia’s side. That is, until River passed her.

Very deliberately, River stopped, and turned to face her in her Terran Reich uniform, and came to attention and saluted. Abebech returned the salute as a matter of course, like her entire being was trained to do it. 

“Surviving crew of the  _ Francesco de Trier  _ fully present and accounted for, Admiral,” River said, a mischievous wink in her eyes. Then she spun on heel and followed her sisters, almost traipsing with delight at Abebech’s response, confirming what she had thought.

“...She’s still a bit strange, isn’t she?” Elia asked, shaking her head wryly and laughing. 

Abebech just stood there, staring for a moment. Then she smiled, and nodded. “Good kid, though. I’ve certainly never served with finer.” 

  
  
  
  
  


Abebech Imra entered Zhen’var’s Ready Room the next morning, fresh from the  _ de Trier.  _ Around them, there were now concentrated eleven Resistance ships that had survived the battle or arrived after it, plus four new prizes that had surrendered. Seven enemy vessels had escaped; forty-five had been destroyed. More than two hundred Cutters and Enforcement vessels had surrendered, as well as a hundred fighters, when it was clear that nobody was going to succor them before they ran out of fuel. Most of them had been moved with tractors into the hangers of the  _ de Trier  _ for want of anywhere else to put them; the logistics of dealing with the surrendered craft were almost overwhelming.

Abebech was still wearing the bottom part of her Alliance uniform, but had an Earthreign uniform top on, from the sports bra and tunic to the jacket, though on that there were no insignia. She came to attention before Zhen’var nonetheless. “Captain, reporting as ordered. My apologies about my state of dress, however, the autotailor we made to work on the  _ de Trier  _ wouldn’t make anything else.”

“It is acceptable in the circumstances, though perhaps you should have gone the rest of the way. The clash is… jarring, shall we say. You had promised me a fuller understanding and accounting, once the battle was over.”

“That is correct, Captain. May I sit?” Abebech’s face was politely neutral, eyes behind a different but no less opaque pair of sunglasses.

“Please, you are welcome to. Free use of the replicator as well, Commander. You may speak freely.” Her eyes studied Abebech carefully; something had happened over on that ship, and she was unsure just what it had been.

Abebech stepped over to the replicator and produced a traditional Ethiopian cup of coffee before moving back to sit at Zhen’var’s desk. “Captain, would it greatly surprise you to hear that I grapple badly with where to begin?” 

“You commanded a battleship of the Earthreign in battle. I am less surprised by such a situation prevailing than you may expect, Abebech.”

“I am a specialist in the history of the Earthreign.” She paused. “I became a soldier because I was offended for my people, Captain.”

“I… perhaps understand more of that than you may expect, thanks to my time with Commander Saumarez.” Taking her mug of tea in hand, Zhen'var looked pensive. “As to how you are defining 'people’, I must guess.”

“No need to guess. The Alliance offers the only real hope for the future of Espers in the Fracture, torn between NEUROM and the sundry cults in opposition to it,” Abebech replied. “It was there I found what allowed me to control the ship’s systems. Thoughts, conserved for thousands of years. Encrypted thoughts. That was how security and authentication were handled aboard Earthreign ships.”

There was a slow nod. “From the little and less I know of the Earthreign, that is most logical. Preserved as a memory, a curiosity of the past, as some telepathic traditions pass on imprinted memories? It must have been indescribable to actually be able to  _ use _ them.”

“A family heirloom, if you will; a reminder that once your family was part of the ruling class of the Reich, that once… You were a King, a Lordly folk, not subject to the madness, the fanatic cults and the pogroms of the Fracture,” Abebech answered, slowly and with great dignity. “I collected many of them.” 

“Captain, when we boarded the ship, my objective was to storm her command spaces and take control by coup de main. I had, over the years, worked out what the encrypted memories  _ were.  _ I had a plan. But I encountered Operative Kalista aboard, and allowed myself to be captured to gain access to the heart of the ship, rather than risk her death. You can see that it paid off, as I created a situation in which I engineered the defection of all the Esper Operatives. Being so savagely abused by the Government, they were uniquely vulnerable to the restoration of their memories and my own projections of the story of the Terran Reich. So, once I realised the situation, part of my objective was to make sure that I prevented the deaths of any of those children. Do my actions begin to make more sense?” 

“Not only more sense, but I am in agreement with them. I expect that others may disagree, but  _ I  _ am in concurrence with your actions so far. Expect another request for promotion on your behalf. I do. I much prefer defections rather than slaughter.”

“Now, in giving the codes to River Tam, the second-eldest and most reliable, the  _ de Trier  _ has a crew again and can serve as a base for the Resistance to fight back against the government. This allows us to withdraw from the system, Captain, having provided sufficient firepower to the Resistance to give them a reasonable chance -- fifteen capital ships, hundreds of enforcers and cutters and fighters, and a mobile base which no fleet left in the outer systems can overmatch. The overthrow of the Union of Allied Planets can be obtained without risking exceeding our orders or turning the people of the ‘Verse against the Resistance and the Outer Planets by giving them the impression that they are the puppets of foreign enemies.” A tight smile. “We can leave them with all the technology we are authorised to share, help them concentrate their forces, and then give them an excellent chance at winning their independence.” 

Captain Zhen’var leaned back in her chair, her expression clouded. “I respect your judgement and counsel, Abebech… but I must disagree. A  _ reasonable chance _ in the face of such immoral rule as the Union of Allied Planets practices is insufficient. I intend to move on Londinium with  _ Huáscar _ as soon as practical.”

“Captain, are you not concerned that would exceed the scope of our operational orders for this mission?” 

“I am not. I have further orders you are unaware of, Abebech.” Apology shone in her eyes, which she tried to mentally project as well.

“Of course, Captain.” Abebech betrayed no displeasure or emotion. “With your leave, then, I will return to the  _ de Trier  _ and prepare the hyperdrive for a jump in-system. If we are to do this, we will make it as emphatic as possible, certainly?”

“Correct, and I do, where possible, wish the local forces to have utmost control. The Alliance is intending to maintain a presence here in at least the short to medium term, Abebech.”

“I believe I understand.” Abebech could, in fact, directly see the astrostrategic rationale for the deployment. It would give the Alliance a secure base within striking range of Cylon space. “By your leave, then, Captain?” She finished her coffee. 

“So granted. I will be relying on you for insight into local conditions. You have more first-hand experience with them than I do… thank you, Commander.  _ Very  _ well done.”

  
  
  
  
  


Zhen’var’s next order of business that morning had come when she received an excited message from Nah’dur. “Captain, I wanted to let you know that we are utterly successful. The plan you approved after our first fight in the system has worked.” 

It took several moments for her to recall just  _ what _ plan Nah’dur was speaking of, first, before recognition dawned in her eyes. “Excellent, Surgeon-Commander! Have we learned anything of use?”

“Yes. I chose the most useful of the Reavers as a subject,” Nah’dur replied after a moment. “Her name is Fei Mian and she was a Union officer before personal issues--I suspect related to her sociopathy--forced her retirement. She is from a ranking family and Sihnon and knew what the objective of Pax was; she volunteered in the hopes it would cure her. She has names, Captain. I selected her from a CORTEX site containing information on missing around the Miranda operation on just the anticipation of that and it’s paid off. Would you come down to speak to her?”

“I am on the way.” She rose from her desk, already starting to plan ahead.

When she arrived, the intensive care ward was completely filled with people. At this stage, twelve hours after the battle had ended, those that were still in intensive care were primarily those that Nah’dur had managed to revive. The crew had still suffered a total of forty-one fatalities over the course of the entire operation so far. It would have been eighty without Nah’dur. 

The Dilgar Surgeon-Commander was checking over a bed in the isolation ward, which indicated it was safe to enter--she was just using it for privacy. Va’tor was at her side. In the bed was a woman of lean, corded muscle, Asian in ancestry, with pink skin everywhere from freshly healed scarification. She had no hair, it having been removed for the surgery, and Nah’dur was yet to put false skin over several cybernetic segments added to the skull. She was not restrained. 

“ _ Neih hou. _ ” came the polite greeting. It was not the same dialect, but it was, at least, mostly comprehensible.

The woman looked up and smiled vaguely. She was still heavily sedated. “Hygienist-Commander Va’tor says that she has suppressed most of my memories for my own sake. You must be Captain Zhen’var.” 

“I am. A pleasure to meet you, Fei Mian.”  _ It has been a radical effort, but a worthwhile one. _

“Thank you… I remember… Starting to lose it,” she added, “You want to know about the Pax project?” 

“No. What came before. The Union of Allied Planets… I wish to know more. The current situation is intolerable, but I do not wish to act on incomplete information.”

“The Union was founded fifty years ago on the basis of lobbying in the elites of Sihnon and Londinium that we needed an alliance of all the worlds of the Verse to remove sources of human suffering. It was actively promoted by some of the megacorps--Blue Sun and Weyland-Yutani--on the grounds of their ‘social capitalism’ policy. Sihnon and Londinium maintained the old Anglosphere-Chinese alliance of Earth-that-Was, but the movement was a peaceful unification into an actual government. Since then a combination of economic pressure and war was used to unify the rest of the ‘Verse, and the local governments in the Core have steadily had their authority reduced. And it worked, Captain. Poverty was eradicated in the inner worlds, and crime reduced, both rich and poor became more wealthy.” Fei Mian had never had faith in the government, she had been a sociopath and her memories were the memories of one even if her brain no longer functioned in either of its past states; it ironically made her far more objective in the moment. “Of course, to guarantee a wise policy, those outside of Londinium and Sihnon were required to earn their citizenship, so the voting population is concentrated there.”

“The outer systems have revolted once, and are on the verge of doing so again. I do not wish to  _ destroy _ what has been built, but I cannot permit what was done with  _ Pax _ , or the what has happened on the outer planets, or a multitude of other projects, as the Union tries to  _ enforce _ its’ control.”

“The government is concentrated on Londinium but the main bulwark of support for the Union is Sihnon, which regularly turns out 80% electoral returns for the Government Consensus parties. Londinium still has an opposition based around the old monarchy and the westerners’ conception of individual rights. There isn’t a left opposition because the government co-opts its positions and twists them into meaninglessness as a matter of policy. I’ve heard as much in discussions my parents had growing up. Of course, they considered it a sign of pride that we controlled opinion so well.”

_ An opposition. That is useful information indeed. _ “Our old Imperium would have thought the same. Thank you, that is critically important information I was  _ not _ aware of.”  _ It is much more difficult to overthrow a regime when you actually care about the aftermath. _

“Thank  _ You, _ ” she answered. “I will make a broadcast, if you want me to, Captain. I must.” 

“You may. It will be a short while before we can get underway. Take the time to rest and recover, please.”

Nah’dur followed Zhen’var out at that point, speaking softly once they got back to her office. “I believe I have cured the sociopathy as well as the Reaver tendencies, but she needs long term care to really recover. The others are going to as well.”

“I know, Nah’dur. It should have proper telepathic and psychosurgery support as well, but that is lacking here.” With an audible sigh, the older woman started to pace. “They will need care, somewhere in the Alliance. The Mha’dorn are advancing quickly in the medical arts, with their sharing of knowledge with the Corps, it seems? Our skill at blending knowledge seems to apply with the mind as well as technology...”

“Yes, I think that best.” She paused. “I may have some useful information for another problem the Corps has been dealing with. I’ve discovered that Pax  _ in theory  _ works on another brain chemical channel. One very similar to the one that the human drug  _ dust  _ in our home universe works on.”

“Let El’sau and Va’tor know, the information will find the way to the right place. “

“It’s more than that, Captain,” Nah’dur interjected. “It didn’t work… On the 99.9%. It did work on the 0.1% -- in a twisted and perverse way. The Reavers actively experienced a kind of telesomatic pleasure from the agony of others. I believe it may be similar to the effect observed in Eubian Aristos.”

“Divine, but…” Her face twisted in revulsion. “It sounds similar, at least. You find matters that… Nah’dur, you are  _ brilliant _ , but you delve into matters that make me very glad that Fei’nur is on the same ship.”

“Certainly,” Nah’dur grinned, “I’m  _ also  _ extremely happy that Fei’nur is on the same ship with me.” 

“As well you should, with your projects. We will be moving into the inner system very soon, now. Be ready for it.”

“Understood. Captain, if at all possible, we should use that opportunity to repatriate prisoners. We now have so many aboard that we  _ will  _ run out of replicator material before we reach Earth again.” They had needed to convert all the empty cargo bays to bunk-space for Government POWs…

“Most of those we fight are not those we  _ aim _ to fight - they serve an unjust government with good personal intentions.

“Either way, Captain,” Nah’dur smiled thinly, “We need them off the ship before we go home.”

  
  
  
  
  


The  _ de Trier _ ’s backup hyperdrive, a ‘Class 20’, was operational four hours later. The crew of the  _ Heermann  _ watched as the screens abruptly flashed into a static projection of the system, parabolics outlined with script indicating positions and coordinate lock-in. 

< _ Make the jump to lightspeed,> _ Abebech commanded, and River executed the command. It was one of the few systems on the  _ de Trier  _ counted important enough to still require the input of a physical lever from River’s position. 

The  _ de Trier  _ fired her stabilising thrusters for the last time and then suddenly accelerated much, much faster than a ship should accelerate. Ships in her home universe using modern hyperdrives didn’t do this; they also still relied on navigational beacons, though the bands of hyperspace they operated in meant they could fix on beacons that were in realspace.

The  _ de Trier  _ needed neither. She flung herself forward in a flicker of pseudomotion and then vanished in a flair of white light. 

“What the …” Even Elia was surprised. 

Violeta was too, but she remembered they had a lot of comrades aboard the  _ de Trier  _ and brought the  _ Huáscar  _ to high warp as planned to catch up and overtake her slow backup. The journey was a matter of minutes.

The  _ Huáscar  _ dropped out of warp at Quarters over Londinium. The planet was guarded by fourteen heavy orbital combat satellites. The plan that Zhen’var had already briefed her officers on was to engage them and destroy a hemisphere’s worth of defences and then dictate terms to the Government. She didn’t launch fighters, they had taken too many casualties already and would be utterly overwhelmed. Either they knock out the heavies and force the government to talk with a display of shock and awe, or they would have to retreat. 

“Detecting signature consistent with…  _ de Trier. _ ”

With a flicker of pseudomotion the three kilometre long dreadnought, looking like a ghostly ruin, exploded out of hyperspace and de-accelerated into low orbit of Londinium, standing off their starboard quarter. 

According to the plan, Daria had already fired a full salvo of forty Solar torpedoes summed from all the launchers. Now she followed it up with the Mk.1 and Mk.2 PPCs, all targeting a single one of the combat satellites. The massive station was rippled with explosions and fires from top to bottom, massive gashes torn in the main hull and huge chunks blasted away by each successive torpedo explosion. They had been on alert, but they never had the time to bring up their defensive anti-missile batteries in the same way the ships entering battle with plenty of warning had. 

Then the  _ de Trier  _ opened fire. Her port batteries targeted one station further afield around the equator to the one that the  _ Huáscar  _ had just eviscerated. Neutron beams tracking across its surface, severing weapons and docking platforms with surgical precision, the turbolasers gutted the hull of the station with a tremendous gout of fire. The raw energy was enough to fuse the station’s reactor fuel, and a moment later the fusion detonation completely consumed the combat satellite, filling the sky over Londinium with a brilliant flare of raw white, the blazing fury of a newborn and short-lived sun.

Her intact starboard batteries were weaker, but the precision fire of the heavy turbolasers deep into the satellite hull destroyed reactor power to the weapons of a third station within the same heartbeat while the neutron beams swept along the docking bays, destroying the fighters, Cutters and Enforcers before they could launch. 

“Three stations down, Captain,” Elia confirmed as Londinium shone before them. 

“Transmit Fei Mian’s recording, Operations. Stand by to give me a channel.” The message of a very personal account of Pax and the Miranda project was already going out.

Now that the  _ Huáscar  _ had the full codecs for CORTEX and the security codes from dozens of Government ships, with the time to process them, her enormous computational and broadcast power literally took the entire system over. She washed out the entire system with the power of the broadcast. 

All firing stopped as the broadcast began, but it hadn’t been soon enough for two capital ships to be unable to finish two more stations, and gut a  _ Crete  _ that had been coming around to launch her fighters. Now, the weapons faded away and the communications warfare began, starting with the recording. 

“We have control of all channels and all CORTEX interfaces, Captain,” Lieutenant Tor’jar called out. “The recording has gone out and you are now free and clear to broadcast.” 

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She straightened her uniform jacket reflexively. “I am Captain Zhen’var of the Union of Allied Systems. The crimes of the present government are intolerable to moral states. It is to resign in entirety, and new elections to be held under free and open franchise of all  _ residents  _ of the Alliance. Finally, all telepathic subjects of the ‘Academy’ experiments will be immediately rendered to my custody without harm to mind or body.”

The command was electrifying, and emphatic. Five stations and a carrier blazed, or were destroyed outright, in orbit, visible to billions of citizens on the surface of Londinium. The crew listened as it sank in to them that  _ yes,  _ they were simply commanding a government to dissolve itself. At gunpoint.

“Any attack on this squadron will be met by immediate and overwhelming force.” 

There was no immediate attack, and no immediate reply. Elia grinned wryly from her position at Ops. “Do you think they’ll keep us waiting for a while, Captain?” 

“Possibly. Give them footage of the battle at the  _ de Trier _ to make it clear how hopeless their cause is.”

“Feeding to you, Leftenant,” Elia confirmed to Tor’jar.

“...And, Broadcasting, Commander.”

“ _ I can resume hostilities at any moment, Captain,”  _ Abebech’s voice came over the tactical. “ _ However, they are mustering small craft, at a respectable distance.” _

_ “Monitor them. _ ” She paused. “Record for transmitting;  _ You have fifteen minutes to supply an answer to my ultimatum, or I shall consider the reply negative and immediately resume hostilities. _ ”

“Broadcasting…”

“We are being contacted,” Tor’jar reported three minutes later. “The identifications are from the House of Government in New Cardiff.”

“Put them through, Lieutenant.” Squaring herself up, Zhen’var raised her chin and brushed her black hair back, eyes level and burning with determination.

“This is Prime Minister Jonathan Zhang,” the trim Eurasian man with grayed hair at the temples sat at a desk, his features sharply and carefully composed. “You appear to control the orbitals of one of our core worlds. And you are asking my government to resign and convene elections contrary to Alliance Law.”

“I am not asking. I am ordering. You have eleven minutes.” Her voice had no give, her face, no flicker of emotion.

“Captain, if it is the situation in the Outer Systems that is the concern, would an immediate withdrawal of all government forces from those planets satisfy you? You are asking me to abrogate the sovereignty of the Union.”

“You surrendered any legitimacy your government may have possessed with the acts performed upon your citizens. This is not a negotiation, Excellency.”

He spluttered. The channel went dark. 

“Ensure his people see that exchange.”

“Broadcasting,” again Tor’jar forced the video onto the whole of CORTEX. 

With two minutes left, a new signal was received from the surface. “Second broadcast, still from New Cardiff. Shall I put it on, Captain?” 

“Go ahead. Record for rebroadcast if needs be.” She had the same calmly inscrutable expression on her face as the screen blinked back to life.

A different man with sandy blonde-brown hair was on the screen, though in the same kind of formal suit. “Captain Zhen’var, this is Speaker Nathaniel Roberson.” He was speaking directly from the House, too, having not taken the time to leave the floor. His expression was pale and taut. “We voted no confidence in Prime Minister Zhang. I am the Head of Delegation for the National League of Londinium, but half the Government Members supported the motion. Will you work with me to de-escalate the situation?” 

“If my second term, of a Union-wide vote for the future direction of the Verse is accepted, I accept, assuming, of course, that the third term is met within the next five hours. I have no wish for further bloodshed, or the destruction of the progress the ‘Verse and Union have made since your people’s exodus from the Earth-That-Was.”

“We will hold an immediate floor vote on the franchise and the appointment of a new Prime Minister on those terms,” he answered. “The Academy subjects will be handed over as you directed, within the five-hour timetable. Is that sufficient against your immediate deadline?”

“It is. I shall withdraw to high orbit.” 

“We will stand down.” The message again blinked off.

When it did, Elia started to laugh. “Gods, Captain, but if anyone from the Earth Alliance sees me in a video of you doing that, they’d probably die.”

“You seem to think that is  _ not _ going to end up in an Alliance news feed that ISN will re-broadcast, Commander.” She leaned back, feeling a tenseness she’d held for days finally start to relax.  _ I will hope for a high death-toll, El’sau. _

Nobody else on the bridge could really figure out why their Ops officer was laughing so hard. 

#  Tag

  
  
  


Deep inside an ornate, Chinese-style castle on Sihnon, two Union political operatives looked at each other nervously. Neither one wanted this mission. They were both terrified of the wrath of the woman they knew as Lady Seng. 

It was only when another figure arrived, sandals pattering down the corridors of the castle in the dim light, cloak billowing, that they decided better it be them than the figure who was approaching. 

Together, as one, they opened the doors and pushed their way in, both bowing deeply toward the seat on which the frail woman with sharply done up, lividly black hair sat. 

“Lady Seng. We have unfortunate news. Prime Minister Zhang has been sacked, and the government has agreed to the terms of the alien Captain.”

There was silence as Mariza, the third figure, approached from behind. 

Then Lady Seng slowly opened her eyes, and the two recoiled from that sight they had never gotten used to. “The plan has indeed been interrupted,” she said softly, “but I am the one who gave permission to the Delegates to vote no confidence in Prime Minister Zhang. His usefulness was outlived by the exigencies of circumstance. We will find new opportunities; Captain Zhen’var is already negotiating for possession of Miranda as an Alliance base. Even if we have lost the Interuniversal Drive on Object Sigma, we will get another chance. And my dears, we will find the electorate in the Outer Worlds as easy to manipulate as that of Londinium and Sihnon. The words will change, but the price of a politician will not. Inform the board of Weyland-Yutani to take care to accept full responsibility. We will declare a reorganisation bankruptcy to protect the assets that we need for renewed operations. That is all.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


Bea, Mal, Simon, River, Abebech, Fei’nur, Elia and Zhen’var were sitting around a table in a conference room on the  _ Huáscar,  _ with the remains of a spread served up from the officer’s mess around them. 

Mal smiled wryly. “Captain, we do owe you a lot. I thought you would headin’ out after this, and unlikely to return. But when I got the news of Miranda… Truth be told, I don’t like the idea of the Outer Planets seeing an even bigger power settled next to ‘em. We still got enough trouble with the Core. But it’s pretty clear that if they don’t like how the vote goes, you’ll be there.”

“I doubt it will be… forever, which is  _ good _ . It means we will be there just long enough to… steady matters.” She was picking her words carefully. “I admit, what I decided upon was a compromise of what you had desired, Captain Reynolds, and I must apologise for halting short of what was deserved, Captain Tam.”

“You rescued all of us, that’s the important part,” River replied. She was in a flowing sundress, not the Terran Reich military uniform, but sitting with Simon at her side, she looked more mature than she had been seen before, even so. 

“It was a compromise,” Mal shrugged. “It wasn’t sellin’ us out. I can tell the difference. We’ve still got the  _ de Trier  _ and fifteen warships if things do go to hell before more Alliance forces return.”

“Captain Reynolds is being modest,” Bea added. “I encouraged him to …”

“Don’t even bring that up! I ain’t the man for the job.”

“He really doesn’t like the idea of  _ running for Parliament, _ ” River said in a conspiratorial whisper to Zhen’var. 

“One might say that the one who hates the idea of power, but grasps the responsibility, is the best choice of all. I shall, however,  _ not _ suggest it, Captain Reynolds. It clearly has already been done.”

“Well, I’ve always done what I had to, to keep myself free,” Mal answered after a moment. “I suppose if that’s what I had to do to keep it, then I’d do it.” He glanced at Bea. “But there are certainly people more suited to the politics side of things.”

“We are forming a political party to contest the election,” the woman agreed. “My father fought with Captain Reynolds at Serenity Valley, and died there; I had thought we would fight together in a struggle against the Union government, but maybe, just maybe, it won’t be necessary.” 

“That is my hope, at least.” Zhen’var took her ever-present cup. “If it comes to it, then we will fight together, but wars are uncertain and difficult things, as most of us know first-hand.”

“Of all the things you have helped us with though, Captain,” Simon added a quiet moment later, “before we go, the one I want to thank you most for is River. She had such potential, I saw it as her brother, we all saw it, and she deserved to have something more than what the Alliance left her with. You have given her her future back.”

“He’s just trying to embarrass me,” River said a bit sheepishly. 

But as she said that, Mal looked almost, not quite but almost, like he was going to tear up. “Yeah.” He finally said, shaking his head. “She’s part of our family. The  _ Serenity  _ family. Giant old starship or whatever, she’s our River. And thank you for givin’ that future back to her.”

  
  


Four days later, the  _ Huáscar  _ stood off from the  _ Francesco de Trier,  _ and turned outbound. With Will on the bridge, Nah’dur took advantage of the relative peace and quiet to tug Fei’nur and Zhen’var down to Café Varna for a meal. 

The Captain always looked a bit uncomfortable in social settings with the crew, and she often regretted letting herself be dragged along - it had been hard enough to get her down here for her  _ birthday _ .

This moment was no exception, because she had caught a fair number of her officers in the middle of something. They were clustered around one of the large wood plank tables off in the corner, well, except for Elia and Goodenough, who were standing on top of it with tankards, leading the song. 

“ _ Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain _ _   
_ _ For it's we've received orders for to sail for old England _ _   
_ _ But we hope very soon we shall see you again _ _   
_ _ We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors _ _   
_ _ We'll rant and we'll roar across the salt seas _ _   
_ _ Until we strike soundings in the Channel of Old England _ _   
_ __ From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues ”

Anna was playing the accordion in the corner, and Abebech was strumming her guitar with a look of bemusement on her face, and Ca’elia was belting it out in true style along with the rest of them, as Abdulmajid tried to keep along and Abel did a much better job. Violeta had an impish grin, and Arterus was laughing and grinning at the table until he saw the Captain, and stiffened right up. 

“ _ We hove our ship to with the wind at sou'west, boys _

_ We hove our ship to, our soundings to see _

_ So we rounded and sounded; got forty-five fathoms _

_ We squared our main yard and up channel steered we _ ”

Elia finally saw the three of them and her dark eyes widened. 

“I… carry on. My apologies for interrupting.” Zhen’var waved awkwardly, and hurriedly turned to depart.

Before she could, Elia looked a grin to Jonathan Goodenough and then struck up another song. 

“ _ Come all you warlike spacers, that to the stars belong _

_ I'll tell you of a fight, my boys, on board the Huáscar _

_ It was of a Dilgar captain, her name was Zhen'var _

_ With courage bold, she did control, she played her part so well!” _

_ Oh Divine, you think singing about me is going to get me to do anything other than leave  _ **_faster_ ** _?! _

That left the three Dilgar standing outside of Café Varna with Nah’dur looking confused. “Why did we leave?” 

“You saw Arterus. The crew cannot really celebrate freely with me there. You two, go, enjoy your dinner, I  _ insist _ .”

“But, Captain! You have to understand, it means your officers, they  _ love  _ you, Zhen’var!” Fei’nur exclaimed.

“Elia, at least, but you two, go. Enjoy, there is clearly a celebration, and you deserve to be part of it.

“Goodenough was in on it as well, sister, and he’s on the  _ Heermann, _ ” Nah’dur remarked calmly. “I agree with Fei’nur’s assessment.”

“It does not change the awkwardness nor inappropriate nature of my being present at such. Now  _ get in there,  _ you two.”

“And leave you alone? We should all at least decamp to Fei’nur’s quarters and try out replicator selections together.” 

“I am the Captain, there is no need.” Zhen’var was starting to look fractionally annoyed at Nah’dur being stubborn, and Fei’nur’s discomfort was growing as she reached for the Surgeon-Commander’s elbow. “Another night, Captain. Nah’dur will not let you escape the postponement.”

Nah’dur sighed. “Yes, Fei’nur, where …”

“Another night, come now, Nah’dur.” The commando gestured the doctor back towards the doors. “I am sorry it did not work out, Captain.”

Zhen’var waved it off as she started to turn to go. “It sometimes comes to be. Do not let it trouble you.”

As she walked away, she was softly singing under her breath.

  
_ “I have watched my shipmates come and go, and worked while others died, there are no words to tell you what I feel inside.”  _ Not all of them, after all, were going home. It was the Pilot’s mess which had no-one present at the little gathering. Almost half the fatalities had been theirs. And Zhen’var was the Captain of her crew. Each and every one, even those who floated in the driftless void between the stars of the Verse, having fought and died for freedom.


End file.
